It was Tuesday of the second week of this summer: in my opinion the greatest week of what seemed to be forever, because it was that week when I received my first paycheck in eight months. It was not clothes I was going buy, nor was it electronics. No, I had one thing on my mind: my dream meal. For I was no longer poor and condemned to consume the horrible, food-poisoned excuse for nourishment that my college provided. Now, after months of eating cereal, Saltines, and Slim Fast, I knew exactly what that meal would be: a turkey artichoke sandwich complemented perfectly with an I.C. Mocha, from Panera Bread.
Being the sweet young girl I am (or efficient -- whatever you wanna call it), I planned on eating my meal in the presence of my grandfather, whom I haven't seen in months. And at the same time give him something that differed from the shit he ate at the King Street Sub Shop. With my plan in hand, I began driving to Panera Bread.
In retrospect, a warning light should have gone off somewhere. It was intensely hot that day and my car has no AC. I was about to introduce my stomach to food it hadn't seen in months. And it was 4:45 -- thirty minutes away from rush hour. But on that particular Tuesday, my young mind was nowhere to be found.
I got to my grandfather's place with my dream meal and devoured it like a starving wolf in the winter. I sucked the whipped cream topping of my drink down to the very last drop and savored every second. Now, I hadn't seen my grandfather for a long time, and I was determined to talk with him for at least an hour. But ten minutes into my riveting conversation (conversations with grandparents always are), my stomach revolted. My stomach was confused and scared -- it hadn't seen this kind of food in months. I envisioned my beloved meal traveling through my intestines at warp nine, demolishing the equilibrium it took nine months of college to establish. I could actually feel it moving through my stomach: an unstoppable tidal wave bound for the coastline of a porcelain Jacuzzi.
There is only one working toilet in my grandfather's house, and it was less than three feet away from where he was sitting. The urgency was rising, but I felt I could make it home. I stopped mid-conversation and lied to my poor grandfather, telling him my dentist appointment was in twenty minutes and that I needed to leave that instant. I gave him a quick hug and kiss and bolted to the car. Thanks to his lack of observational skills, he sensed nothing wrong.
When I got to my car, the interior was like an oven. The steering wheel was barely touchable, and the seat nearly burned my back when I sat down. I roared the engine to life and was off. The car was smoldering and I wiped the sweat from my brow as I began navigating the tight city streets with potholes at every turn. The vibration from the motor, the bumps from the road, and the heat from the sun was turning my intestines into a melting pot. The brew was cooking. It would be ready soon.
It took me ten minutes to get out of the city. I shot out onto the main road faster than the men at college can bong an Iron City beer. But just when I crested the hill, a horrible sight burned into my retinas: none other than a four-foot tall woman peering through her steering wheel, cruising her Caddie at twenty miles per hour.
I almost cried. I tailgated her and even tried to pass in double yellow. I thought to myself, "If I could just fart I could relieve some of this pressure, I'd be okay."
But I knew that I couldn't fart. The front line didn't consist of the usual foot soldiers; there were cannons at my castle door. I felt I was going to shit myself, plain and simple. There was only one thing I could do: call Erica and tell her.
Erica was my freshman year roommate whom I discovered very early on loved farting as much as I did. We farted together, shared stories together, even discovered PoopReport together. She needed to be there with me. I desperately reached for my phone and dialed -- but she never picked up. Still, I could hear her voice in my head telling me I could make it, giving me hope and strength. I had five minutes, two stop signs, and a police station to go. I could make it, I thought. I could make it.
The last five minutes of the journey I barely remember. Maybe God shined down that day, or maybe luck crossed my path, but somehow I made it home. I ran upstairs and ripped my pants down as the cannons broke through the door. Then I let out a fart so loud it should have broken the window. About two percent of the mess hit my underwear -- a fair trade for what could have been.
Then it came. The tidal wave hit the shore and with a fury like no other shit before. It hit the water, splashing me and almost brimming over the seat. This was no ordinary diarrhea. This was extremely painful. I grabbed the shower side and tried to keep myself on the seat, the pain increasing despite the emptying of my bowls. Between the loud, uproarious farts that followed and wave after wave of the super-heated liquid-shit remains of my first true meal, I thought there was no hope for me.
The mere quantity of it astounded me. Where the hell did all that come from? But the smell was much harder to describe. It seemed to crescendo multiple times throughout the ordeal -- ironically peaking when, preceded by liquid shit, a perfectly-sized log found its new watery home. Simply put, I had to courtesy flush six times to keep from passing out.
Sitting there on that toilet, I began drawing a rough outline in my head for PoopReport. I was going to save this story for some rainy college night during which schoolwork was to be avoided. Tonight was that night. I hope you've all enjoyed it.