I'm working in China, where I live adjacent to campus with an easy uphill walk to work. I work two days a week. I live on the fourth floor of a funky-looking building. Sorry -- no elevator. But four floors aren't so bad. Actually, I dread going down the stairs more than I fear going up. I have found that in China, no matter where you are, there is a lot of walking to do. Back in the States, I usually only walked when I was shopping or when I deliberately went out to get some exercise.
The other morning I was leaving for work. Just as I got to the ground level, I felt the slightest twinge of an urge. It wasn't a powerful urge, but it definitely got my attention. I had to talk to myself for a second and encourage myself to keep going. Because if I didn't keep going, I'd have to climb back up four flights of stairs. And since I had just packed up to leave, I really didn't want to go right back up. So I kept going.
As I turned my first corner, about a hundred yards away from where I live, I got hit with another slight urge; but this was more serious. Now I was measuring the time, space, and distance step by step, calculating various probabilities in my head. Could I get to the top of this hill before I shit in my pants? Or should I go back home and go up to get down?
My brain could definitely use a RAM update, because I still could not decide what the proper course of action was. I kept going. "I can make it," I told myself. This was a vague sort of urge, not a bitter one. The probability was that I could go all to way to work and use that men's room right by the entrance as soon as I got there. So I kept going.
Then, as I was winding around my third for fourth turn, it became suddenly apparent that I had miscalculated. It had become obvious that this impending bowel movement was going to be a GUSHER. All or sudden, there I was, in the middle of no man's land, struck with what I consider to be the absolute worst feeling in the world: the overwhelming urge to take crap, in public, without the remotest clue of where to find a bathroom.
I made one vain attempt to ask someone directions, but the response sounded like either "It's way the hell over there" or "Get out of here, you weirdo."
So, even though I felt like I was going to go in my pants, I gritted my teeth, and, in a clumsy sort of zombie-like walk, started to return to my home. My on-board computer finally checked in and the data was conclusive: go back!
As I wobbled and staggered back to my place, stopping occasionally to concentrate all my energy on keeping my butt from opening up, I considered the different ways I might have to handle this situation if it did in fact get completely out of hand.
It's a sense of terror. And in my terror, I wondered if the excrement would wet my pants. I hoped the shit wouldn't drip down my legs and on to my shoes. Would anyone notice? Can they already tell that I'm having a problem?
At one moment, I had to actually reach around behind me and force my hand against the crack in my ass to apply extra pressure. I don't usually have to do anything so drastic, but this was an extreme attack. My perception was entirely focused on my immediate problem: the most intensely uncomfortable feeling I have ever experienced. Everything else, all my other worldly concerns, completely faded from view. There was nothing else at all. There was only one thought going through my mind: this is agony.
At moments like this, even though I don't have conventional religious beliefs, I start praying.
I made two attempts to find a spot where I might squat unnoticed. I considered jumping into the bushes, but I couldn't spot any accessible clumps of foliage. I was desperate. I had to consider the possibility that I might have to give up my status of being considered "toilet trained". One possibility I deliberated upon was to just stop and go ahead and shit. I wasn't too far away from home. I figured I could contain the problem and keep my pants filled while waddling the short distance back to my apartment. But I felt that I had to keep going and not give in to the urge. It was a matter of honor.
I'm a fifty-two-year-old man. I just can't go around shitting in my pants anymore, no matter what. When I find it impossible to get to a toilet in order to take a shit, I'll buy a gun and blow my brains out. Although some comic possibilities do occur to me at this moment about what life would be like if I could shit anytime I liked, wherever I was, no matter who I was with. But that's another story. And a sort of a strange one.
I retraced my steps back to my apartment and spastically walked up the four flights of stairs, like I had cerebral palsy. I got inside and threw off the pack and case I was carrying. I lunged into my bathroom. Dropping my pants, I didn't bother to put the seat down -- I just stuck my ass all the way in. As I sat there shuddering in relief, in a cold sweat, I heard my heart pounding in my head louder than I had heard it for years. I felt some grit in my mouth and found a small chip of enamel from one of my teeth. This intense urge had caused me to clench up so severely that I had actually chipped a tooth! "Oh man," I thought. "This is going to be a strange day."
Frankly, though, this sort of thing does seem to happen to me every so often. So I've always figured that most people must experience the same thing from time to time. One day, when playing tennis with a colleague, I had such an attack. Later, I talked to him about my experience. I was shocked when I heard him respond by saying that he had never once in his life ever had such an experience. He's a Filipino-Australian with a PhD in psychology. I think he's about thirty years old. And he's never had an experience like mine.
Hell, if I put my mind to it, I could probably write a list with at least thirty such previous experiences I have had throughout my lifetime.
I've always considered this problem a serious weakness. Since I never hear anyone else (except for really old people) talk openly about their bowel movements, I have no way to figure out exactly where I fit in along our collective space/time continuum. I can't imagine that other people haven't had these experiences.
In a profound psychological sense, these are very desperate experiences, evoking strong, strong emotion. It's profound drama, even if it is transitory.
But it's not like Hollywood is going to rush right out there and make a film about a man and his periodic difficulties controlling his bowels.
I would like to know if what I'm talking about is something that other PoopReporters understand. My question to you is this: do you know what I'm talking about? Have you ever had a similar experience? Or does what I say sound bizarre and unusual? Can you relate your personal experiences to what I am saying? I'm really just trying to figure out if I'm normal or some type of an aberration.
Shit in pants? Not a good thing.