A sixteen-hour car trip to Philly and NY with your best pal quickly loses its appeal when nature calls. I recently returned from just such a trip with a friend of mine. The trip up was tedious, but bearable. On the way back it was *far* worse -- and it certainly didn't help that my digestive tract and I were at odds the whole way.
Before the trip there, I played it safe. I made sure to fast and to bring various remedies for stomach discomfort, just in case. A poop was brewing from the day before, but -- amazingly -- I held it for the whole trip up to Philly (about thirteen hours, give or take). A bit extreme to most -- but in my eyes, taking a dump in a public facility is on par with making out with a rabid hyena. When we finally arrived at my brother's house in Philly, I was treated to what was arguably the most lengthy dump -- both in actual length of poop and length of time excreting the poop -- of my life thus far. I literally sat there, exclaiming aloud, "Jesus Christ, will it ever end?" And when it finally did, I honestly felt lighter; and I honestly had a bit of trouble gaining coordination upon exiting the bathroom.
On to the trip home. This time I was somewhat careless and neglected to take the same precautions I had on the trip up. I not only ate a breakfast of a ketchup-and-cheese potato chip sandwich (two, in fact), but I washed it all down with really shitty light beer, which has a history of moving things along in my colon. I still had plenty of the various stomach medicines left over, so I didn't worry myself about it. Of course, it didn't help that all throughout the trip my diet had consisted entirely of pizza, burgers, and shitty beer.
Some unforeseen events kept us in Virginia for twenty hours. Yes, twenty hours. The entire trip from NY to Georgia should have only taken around sixteen hours. So by nightfall (I believe it was about midnight), we had to pull over into a gas station because my friend and his girlfriend (who came back with us) didn't feel they could drive any more without passing out. I wasn't at all tired due to a phenomenally cracked out second wind, so I sat in the car sweating my ass off while they slept.
I have an incredibly low tolerance for heat, and when such conditions set in, I fall mildly ill. My bowels saw this to be their golden opportunity to round up the herd for relocation. What an awful time for such a thing to set in, seeing as we were surrounded by more truckers and other various weirdoes -- including a very disturbed individual staring at us from a shaded area in his van -- than I'd ever seen in my life. I reluctantly grabbed the Clorox spray (thank God I thought to have my friend grab that before we left) and headed into the gas station food mart.
I crossed my fingers in hopes that the bathroom would be single person with a lock on the door. No dice. Grungy truckers were littering the facility. I crept my way to the handicapped stall in the far back (kinda defeats the idea of it being a handicapped stall). I was already a bit anxious from being held up in Virginia for so long and now I had to deal with shady truckers conversing about my doings in the stall.
Why were they talking about me, you ask?
Upon entering the stall, I took my time in sterilizing the urine-soiled toilet seat with the Clorox. About ten minutes, to be exact. Then I had to painstakingly lay two seat covers on the seat and wad some phenomenally hard-to-rip toilet paper -- seriously, it must've been made of Kevlar -- into the bowl to prevent splash back. Then I had to pull down my shorts while simultaneously hiking up their bottoms so they wouldn't touch the deplorable dried pee-pube cakes residing on the floor.
This poop, much like the one in Philly, took a good five years off of my life, plus an additional five trying to rip and wipe with the aforementioned toilet paper.
When I exited the stall, the bathroom was empty, much to my relief. But when I walked out back into the store, time stopped. Everyone in the store paused in the midst of their doings and just stared at me until I walked out. The looks on their faces were not so much ones of shock or surprise but of sheer terror. I guess the combination my messed up hair, my sweaty face, and my bloodshot eyes, all while carrying a large can of Clorox, left for an unfavorable impression.
I went back to the car and lay down until my friend knocked on the window to wake me up, claiming that he couldn't sleep and asking if I was good to drive. I was; but just to be safe, I decided to head back to the food mart in which I had pooped to grab something caffeinated. Again, as soon as the door swung open, everyone came to a dead halt and just stared at me. I quickly made my way to the sodas and then went promptly to the counter to pay for my drink. The cashier said nothing to me -- she wouldn't even make eye contact. She took a great deal of time ringing up my single drink, very cautiously taking my money and giving me my change. In fact, she didn't even hand it to me -- she put it on the counter and slid it over. I took my change and put it into my wallet, and when I looked up from my wallet, she was gone -- and most of the store was cleared out, save an employee or two far in the back.
What had I done? Was there some unspoken rule that sterilizing the sacred handicapped stall was a sign of the apocalypse? Whatever the reason for these people's unrest, I learned a valuable lesson that night: never poop late at night in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Virginia.
-- Ratz