For about twenty years, Thanksgiving Day has been the one day of the year that I could predict an IBS event almost to the minute.

When it comes to my grandmother's cooking, I am like a deranged drug addict at a buffet of the best dope on the planet. Like most feasts on this notorious gut-stuffing holiday, there are plenty of the traditional foods available that are non-threatening to sensitive digestive systems such as mine. But there are also those things my granny makes that I know are going to be the death of me, but I just can't resist. It is worth it to me to suffer for a few hours afterward to enjoy the immediate pleasures of these foods as they enter my body.

Grandma is famous for her cooked cabbage. This stuff is unbelievable. She also makes little biscuits out her dressing, bakes them on a cookie sheet, and presents a plate piled high with these delectable, savory, loaded-with-sage gut bombs.

Yes, it is the sage that gets me every time. I have learned to avoid the stuff like the plague. Sage is my Kryptonite. But knowing this seems to have no effect on my decision-making abilities when Grandma's dressing beckons to me from that enormous plate. After the first couple of bites, I always start to feel the pain. Within fifteen minutes of eating it, I am in the upstairs bathroom, away from everyone else. I usually get through phase one of my colonic blowouts in about twenty minutes or so, at which time I say my goodbyes and hastily head for home to spend the rest of the day in and out of my own bathroom.

This year was special. As I reported back in the summer, I seem to have been cured of my chronic yet mostly unpredictable bouts of IBS. I had been experimenting with foods that usually prompt an attack, and have so far been successful in not having any. So I have been waiting for Thanksgiving to put my innards to the ultimate test. If there was anything left that could wreak havoc on my newly regular and pain-free pooping process, it would be Grandma's dressing.

There was one small glitch in my plan. I had to do a private duty nursing case on Thursday night. A twelve-hour shift, beginning at seven thirty that evening. I didn't want to spend my night putting Depends on myself along with my patient. Transferring someone from a chair to a wheelchair or to a bed is difficult enough without having to deal with colonic spasms during the process. So I'd have to save Grandma's delectables for later.

I went to Grandma's. I had a little bit of everything, with the exception of the dressing. I even had some of the cabbage on this first go-round. Then I told my granny that I just wanted the rest on a to-go plate, to take with me to work.

When I arrived at the address and went up to the giant oversized door and rang the bell, the only response that I got was ferocious barking, growling, and snorting from the dog from Hell, the very one who must guard the entrance gates right into the old inferno. I was expecting Lurch to appear from behind that massive door at any minute. And I was starting to imagine that my patient for the night was going to be some awful, creepy scientific experiment gone horribly wrong... but there was no answer.

I rang again. The dog was still in a barking and growling frenzy, pacing back and forth, ready to have a nice feast of his own at my expense. Still no answer.

Just as I was about to call the agency, a large black car pulled into the big circular driveway. I was told by the driver that I was being taken to another house, where my patient was having dinner with family, and that I would be bringing her home. So I was put into the back seat and whisked away to the other side of town to meet up with my client.

Upon arrival at the other house -- which was not quite as intimidating as the first, but still a bit above my personal price range -- I was escorted through the foyer and the kitchen into a huge dining room that had obviously been the scene of the recent turkey massacre. My patient, whom everyone called Bar-bar, was seated in an overstuffed chair in the corner of the main sitting room. Other family members were sprawled over the other furnishings, stuffed to the gills with food, their eyeballs swimming in the various alcoholic beverages each of them were still nursing. It became clear to me that my patient was not the product of a mad scientist, but just an elderly member of a completely dysfunctional family of wealthy drunks. Even the teenage son was three sheets to the wind, and the slurred conversation between him and his dad continued as though I weren't even there. Nobody seemed to notice my presence except for my patient.

Dessert was served shortly after my arrival. My patient had chosen pumpkin and key lime pies, which she attempted to eat with a spoon. She resisted any help from me, even though a recent stroke had left her left hand extremely weak. I ended up spending most of this time simply wiping up dropped chunks of pie.

And it was when I was in the bent-over squatting position that I first noticed the effects of the cabbage I had consumed earlier. I decided to sneak off a little pressure.

The smell was weak at first; but as it rose up throughout the room, it began to intensify. I had just emitted noxious fumes into the presence of a room full of uptight, high-fallutin' snobs.

A dog I had not noticed before -- he had been lying on the floor underneath the coffee table -- raised his head, sniffed the air, and began to whimper.

The mother of the teenaged boy drunkenly exclaimed, "Oh my God, Pippy! Who fed you table scraps? Clay, I told you and Hunter not to feed the dog any turkey! You know what it does to her. Go take her out!"

I watched quite smugly as the dog was escorted outside, glad to have had a canine present to be blamed for my little expulsion. And I was also secretly gloating about my silent victory thus far over my earlier indulgences. Though I am sure the broccoli and hard-boiled eggs played at least a minor role in that odiferous performance I had just produced.

Not much more time had passed before my client indicated that she wished to be taken home. The car was brought around. I put her into the front seat, loaded up her chair and other personal items into the trunk, took my place in the back seat of the elegant automobile, and off we went. While unloading her chair back at her house, I could once again hear the beastly hound at the door; but this time, in lieu of barking, he was just grunting and scuffling about in anticipation of his owner entering.

I was not immediately mauled to death by the vicious monster inside. I was simply sniffed at and apparently regarded as an extension of his beloved master. Remi, the large black Labrador retriever, commenced to tail wagging and followed us into the house. In my mind, I thought that he, too, might come in handy later, in the event of any more untimely farts.

In the next hour, I changed the patient into her nightgown, gave her her pills, and wheeled her over to the vanity table to start her breathing treatment. While she was inhaling the fumes from the nebulizer, I went into the adjoining master bedroom, turned down the covers, and strategically placed several pads under the sheets to protect the bed from any accidents that her Depends wouldn't contain. There's not much worse than having to completely strip a bed in the middle of the night with a stroke patient covered in poo.

After I had the patient securely tucked in for the night, I went down into the sitting room and read until I could hear the breathing sounds that indicated my client was in a deep sleep. That is when I brought out my foil-wrapped plate of goodies from Grandma's kitchen.

And there, in a heaping pile, were Grandma's beautiful, but potentially deadly, little splats of sage-infused delights. I went into the kitchen, popped the plate into the microwave, and was soon engulfed in the aromas of wonderful leftovers. I savored each and every bite, mentally monitoring my intestinal sensors with great intensity. No pain. No gurgling. So far, so good. I smiled contentedly.

When I had finished stuffing myself, I went to check on Bar-bar. Sound asleep. I went back into the sitting room and took my place in the chair to wait until morning. Remi came in and flopped down at my feet, now also full, as I had enough on my plate to satisfy the both of us. I released several smelly fumes throughout the night with the peace of mind that I could blame it on Remi if need be.

As I was bringing the newspaper into the kitchen early the next morning, I noticed a heavy feeling in my lower gut, and felt that a trip to the bathroom would probably prove quite productive. But I decided to wait until I was in the comfort and privacy of my own bathroom. I felt no sense of urgency. And I was very impressed with how many hours had passed since eating the sage dressing without any ill effects.

The drive home is about thirty minutes down a narrow country road, ten minutes across the bypass, and down a few more streets. During the drive, I became increasingly aware of what felt like a cannonball sitting in my gut. Memories of Poosey Ridge entered my thoughts, but I pushed them aside. I was experiencing increasingly noxious eruptions of gas, and the weight in my gut began to press on the back door with a little more urgency, but I was still not worried. I was almost home.

My butt always seems to know when I am near my home. It was getting somewhat excited about the fact that release was close at hand.

As I approached the last stoplight before my street, an ice-cold fluid poured into my intestines from my mid-ribs to my lower abdominal cavity. The hairs on my neck stood up, and an involuntary shiver washed over me. I was not experiencing pain, but I had prolonged my riddance of all that food just a tad too long.

I clamped down the old sphincter for good measure. I didn't want to risk any rogue farts that might cause a collapse in the dam.

Pulling into my driveway, I smiled a little, knowing that inside the house were two spacious, comfortable bathrooms in which to make my post-Thanksgiving offering to the porcelain gods. Given the intensity of the situation, I decided on the downstairs one. It is mostly used by my eight-year-old daughter, so I knew it would be unoccupied, since she had spent the night at her dad's and wouldn't be home until the afternoon.

The events that unfolded in the bathroom were actually quite unremarkable -- except for the fact that I had indeed accomplished my goal. I had survived the ultimate test. After all my Thanksgiving indulgences, I simply filled the toilet with the poop of a normal, healthy, non-IBS-inflicted colon.

Completely satisfied and very pleased with my accomplishment, I cleaned myself up and did what any self-respecting PoopReporter would: I turned and admired my creation just before hitting the handle to flush. I watched as the water swirled, and swirled, and rose, almost to the rim. In a slight panic, I quickly bent down and turned off the valve to the toilet's water supply. Either I got lucky or I had just acted in haste, because the entire contents of the bowl just then went down and out. I returned the valve to its open position, washed my hands, and went upstairs to bed.

I can only speculate as to how I have been able to conquer my affliction after all those years of suffering. Perhaps it just takes fifteen years for intestines to straighten themselves out of the knot they were tied into during a c-section. Or perhaps getting all of the morons and idiots out of one's life is the key. But I still believe that my participation in this wonderful outlet for poop-related issues is the major link -- helping me overcome the woes of irritable bowels, and giving me the power of mind over fecal matter.