I am the brother of recent PoopReport contributor Straight Pipe. I turned him on to PoopReport, but he was the one who motivated me to submit a story. And poop stories I have. This is the story of that fateful day when I crossed over from being a normal defecator to what I am today -- a person who really just shits too much.

I'm not a Shameful Shitter, but nor am I Shameless. Over the years I've become more and more Shameless, but I'm certainly not an open door shitter. That said, I've made deposits in probably a thousand public toilets in my lifetime, so I'm not a "home only" shitter, either.

I made it through my school days with no fecal traumas. I never found myself in an emergency situation that required me to use the stalls at school, because I had a plan. On the rare occasions that I knew I couldn't wait until after school, I simply feigned illness and went to the clinic. Once there, I would tell the nurse that I thought I might throw up, and I'd be sent to the spacious and quiet clinic bathroom, where I could do my business. All my life it seemed that I was conveniently able to find a clean, comfortable bathroom without the situation reaching a critical point. Until one night a couple of years after high school.

I was working a job as a security patrol officer. This job entailed driving around a large area of Dallas in a patrol car (there were about a dozen of us covering the city), answering calls and just cruising through the various accounts, looking for trouble. My beat was mostly apartment complexes, but there were some businesses. I worked the 6:00 PM -- 6:00 AM shift, so if I needed a bathroom I was supposed to use convenience stores and restaurants and such.

Anyone who has been a convenience store bathroom at 2:00 AM can understand why this is not an appealing prospect. But I had a plan. Each patrol beat included a variety of apartment complexes and businesses. Each officer carried a zippered bank bag containing the keys to the buildings, and a binder with the security codes. These keys and codes were supposed to be for emergencies only (building search, fire alarm, etc.), but guys were known to perform "an investigative foot patrol of the premises" to pinch a loaf in the sanctuary of an empty office building.

The night I'll tell you about here started out like any other night. After answering a few routine calls and patrolling a few apartment complexes, I decided it was time for dinner. Since I worked all night, I didn't like to eat too early, but if I waited too late the choices were limited, and you can only eat at Whataburger so many nights in a row. Even though we worked twelve-hour shifts the dispatchers rarely granted any sort of lunch break, so lunch was usually eaten in the car by the radio. You ate fast, hoping you didn't get a call, and you tried not to think about the possibility of an urgent turd.

I pulled into a Grandy's drive-thru just minutes before closing time and ordered a country fired steak dinner. The meal made me feel a little funky, but I dismissed it as I drove out of the parking lot. This was my first mistake.

As I left the restaurant, I felt the early rumblings of what was soon to be a problem of major proportions. I made it about a mile when I realized that things beyond my control were happening in my bowels, and it would be in my best interests to seek out the absolute nearest facilities. Unfortunately, there were no open businesses in the area -- not even a gas station.

Things started to happen in a surreal time warp as I sensed my body had already begun the countdown to elimination. Racing towards a part of town that I knew would have a gas station or convenience store, I realized I would never make it. I had to do something right now or I was in trouble. I checked my account binder and discovered that there was an office building to which I had keys just a couple of blocks away.

This wasn't one of my regular patrol accounts -- I only had the keys for emergency alarms, so I wasn't sure if my late night intrusion would send up any red flags or not. But I really didn't care at this point. As I flew into the parking lot I called out on a "routine investigation" and gave the dispatcher the unfamiliar address. I didn't wait for the response -- I was already doing the clench-trot to the door, with the key bag and account binder in my hands.

As I fumbled with the keys, my internal crapclock played a cruel trick on me. You know when the guy in the movies is trying to diffuse the ticking time bomb and you see the digital readout counting down second by second, and the would-be hero snips the red wire and then the countdown on the bomb suddenly starts ticking twice as fast? Well, that's what happened to me when I turned the key in that lock. It was as if all of a sudden my sphincter got the word that it was a go -- even though I was still at the front door.

To make matters worse, I could hear the alarm beeping, and I didn't know where the keypad was. As the world raced around me, I found it, and flipped through the book to find the code. I couldn't let the intrusion alarm go off because it would dispatch not only our security company, but -- since I was checked out on an investigation at this location -- our dispatcher would think I was in trouble and send the police as well. This was no good. I had to diffuse the alarm before I could diffuse my intestinal problem. There was no way I wanted the police to come in and find me on the bowl.

I got the alarm turned off, but I wasn't safe yet. I had no idea where the bathrooms were.

I was sweating profusely and everything was a blur. I couldn't find a bathroom on the first floor, so I headed for the elevators. Apparently my brain had assured my sphincter that everything would be cool as soon as we entered the building, and my sphincter was now none too happy about the delay. Of course, the elevators were all turned off, with the doors stuck open. This was it. I was going to have to take a dump in an ashtray.

As I mentally prepared myself for squatting on one of those chrome canisters and then looking for anything that might serve as toilet paper, I saw my salvation. At the end of the hall was a freight elevator with the door closed. I squirmed my way over and pushed the button. When the door opened, I almost lost control right there.

As I rode the world's slowest elevator to the second floor, all I could think about was a bathroom. When the doors opened, I saw the sign I was searching for -- "Restrooms" - with an arrow pointing around the corner. It was about fifty feet down the hall, and I was going to make it. My body went on autopilot as I exited the elevator, preparing itself for the much-anticipated event. I dropped the key bag and binder, hobbled down the hallway, and started to undo my pants.

Here's where things get a little tricky. Under normal circumstances, you just unbutton your pants, drop trou and get to business. But this was different. I was wearing a wide leather belt buckled underneath my gun belt, which was secured with a special contraption. And once I undid the gun belt, it would weigh about ten pounds due to the pistol, the two spare magazines, the handcuffs, etc., so I couldn't properly start the disrobing procedure until I was in the bathroom.

It was a solo john with a sink and one toilet. I saw the toilet as soon as I entered. It was just an ordinary toilet, but apparently it wielded some strange power over my colon, because the instant I saw it all hell broke loose.

Skipping the normal prerequisite cleanup, I turned around and tried to do the unbuckle-drop-squat move. I almost made it. But I forgot about the belt under the belt so I was about a half second too late. Who would have thought a half second could be so critical? A good portion of the foul load ended up in my Fruit of the Looms.

Now I was on the toilet, trying desperately to balance the wet load in my underwear while removing my boots so I could remove my pants and soiled shorts. As I worked on my unique problem I heard a voice calling my name. Terror struck -- I recognized the voice as one of my co-workers. Apparently, in my whirlwind to get into the building, I had left the front door unlocked, and for whatever reason I now had backup on the scene.

I went into immediate action. Kicking off my boots, I leaned forward and closed the bathroom door. The closing door elicited a shout from downstairs, but I ignored it. I had work to do. I got off the soiled shorts, set them aside, quickly finished my business and cleaned up. I could hear my coworker calling me, and then I heard the elevator chime. I quickly redressed, washed my hands and the sweat from my face, and tried to look less traumatized than I was. As I went to open the door, I realized that I had left my soiled drawers on the floor next to the toilet. This was one of those wimpy toilets, not the industrial kind, so I knew there was no way I could flush my not-so-tidy formerly-whities. There was no trash can per se, but on the wall was a stainless steel paper towel dispenser; right under the towel slot was a little bin for discarded paper. I stuffed in my loaded garment and put a few paper towels on top to conceal my damage. I opened the door just as my coworker approached.

He was asking why I didn't answer when the smell hit him, and he knew. I asked what he was doing there, and he said he was close when he heard me call out so he came by, thinking I had something going on and might need assistance. I informed him that it was just a routine shitbreak and I was ready to hit the road. Then he said, "I gotta piss, and this is the only bathroom in the place, lemme in there." Before I could protest he had the door closed and was taking a leak, but not without making some wise comments about my dietary habits. I reset the alarm, locked the door and we left the building.

It had been close, but all in all I thought I escaped with minimal damage done. Little did I know. While the physical damage may have been limited to a pissed off janitor, the psychological damage was more serious. Now that I'd actually shit my pants, I was unsure of my ability to tame my sphincter in future emergencies. Once you cross that line and your bowels realize that they can release before you give them the O.K., things change forever. No longer are you confident that you can make it to safety.

This doubt has led to many more poop stories in the years since... but those are for another time.

-- Duke E. Mann