The year was 1984, I was fourteen, and I was in St. Maarten with a friend and her mother for my eighth grade spring break. We were meeting a privately-chartered yacht, upon which we were to "island hop."

I had always been a somewhat neurotic kid, having been addled with extreme emetophobia (fear of vomiting) since toddlerhood. I was constantly and painfully aware of that which I consumed and of the location of toilets; and because of this, I battled "proximity panic" on a daily basis. This trip was a big step for me -- my physician daddy was hundreds of miles away, and I was to be floating on a boat far from the safety and comfort of solid indoor plumbing for one whole week.

I was an avid water skiier at that time, having competed in many small competitions in rural Pennsylvania, where I was sent for summers. I immediately seized upon the opportunity to show off my prowess to my novice friend and was excited at the prospect of hitting the speedboat ASAP in the open Caribbean waters.

Since we were aboard a private yacht (my friend's family was very wealthy), an all-purpose European staff was included in the charter. The speedboat operator was quick to meet our demands. And since the yacht was fully equipped with all and sundry required for waterskiing, we hastily piled aboard the speedboat, loaded down with skis, life jackets, towropes, and our snappy British operator, and made for the sun-drenched sea on a beautiful tropical afternoon.

I couldn't wait to get to it. Skis in place poking from the turquoise water, bright orange life jacket like a buoy amidst all that blue, my friend watching from the boat admirably, and the towrope firmly clenched in my anticipating hands... life was good.

The operator set the speedboat in motion and away I went. Up up up, the burn of the towrope in my clenched hands like an old friend. I gave the operator the thumbs-up signal, indicating more speed. I crossed the wake again and again as my friend cheered. It wasn't enough! Another thumbs up -- but this time the acceleration came about too suddenly from the amateurish operator. I immediately lost my center of gravity and pitched forward into the wake going god knows how many miles per hour.

The smash of my body into the wake, combined with the shit shyness I'd experienced since the moment I'd left my parents' apartment for the airport a few days before, led to the unthinkable. As the speedboat circled back for me, I realized I'd shit myself.

And that's not the worst of it. The turd that had been probably festering within my colon for days was hard as a rock. And lodged half in, half out of my ass.

I began to sweat and panic as I surrendered to the reality of things and what was going to have to transpire before the speedboat made its full circle around to collect my sorry ass. I had to pull -- yes, PULL -- the lodged turd out of my ass.

So into my bathing suit I reached, and, all the while whimpering, did the unthinkable. The insurmountable. I gave the horrid thing an almighty tug and let it go through the outstretched elastic leg band of my suit bottom. At this precise moment the speedboat came about and the operator asked if I was up for another go. I declined, forcing a smile, pondering the antiseptic properties of salt water, pale as a sheet and feeling faint, nauseous (!!!), and detached.

I never uttered a word of this to my friend, who was chattering excitedly from the back of the boat into my deaf, stunned ears, and forced myself to remain calm in the back of the boat while she gave the water skis a try. (She never even got up.) I was so horrified by what had occurred I was unable to concentrate on anything the rest of the afternoon and barely able to engage in coherent conversation.

And, for my final humiliation, upon returning to the yacht an hour or so later, I was greeted with the most horrendous diarrhea. I literally pissed brown and then clear water out my ass for hours. When this finally subsided, I was virtually catatonic.

More than twenty years later, I never water ski without thinking of that harrowing tale, and I have only recently begun to tell the unabridged story to those closest to me -- up until now, I'd always omitted the "liberating of the turd" bit.