Imagine yourself at your most miserable poop moment -- your sickest, most feverish, most bowel-bruising squirts sprayed out in some filthy coffee can in the middle of the street in Calcutta. Imagine the horror of being upperdecked in your own home. No, imagine a crap-and-wrap in your own home. Imagine that amount of evil; and now imagine doing it to yourself.
Please, allow me to explain.
In true PoopReport style, I deliberately set out to create the most noxious bowel movement possible, purely for the novelty of it. Some of you readers doubtless live in areas in which there exists a fine establishment called Steak and Ale (not to be confused for Steak ‘n Shake). Steak and Ale has an all-you-can-eat prime rib deal on Wednesdays, and last Wednesday I ate forty (40) ounces (1.13 kg) of prime rib. No salad. No dessert. No side dishes. Besides being a delicious dinner fit for a king, I knew it would also result in a truly immortal session in the water closet. I left Steak and Ale with a bill of $17.10 in exchange for six plates of delicious medium rare prime rib.
I was altogether unimpressed with the immediate results. I was slightly gassy that night, but nothing inspiring. I figured it was the calm before the storm. But the next day, nothing to report. All quiet on the southern front. I did develop the start of an ear infection. I didn't know how important that would be in the course of events to follow.
On Friday I noted the absence of a bowel movement. This was unusual, as I will sometimes skip a day, but never two. If I had to set my timepiece by my guts or Big Ben, I would without a doubt choose my colon.
On Saturday I was dizzy from the ear infection and becoming quite congested from a secondary infection of strep. By Saturday night I was running a fever and too stuffed up to breathe much, except through my mouth or intermittently through one nostril. Saturday morning also started the serious gas, and on the occasion that I caught a whiff of it, I was glad to be stuffed up. Most times my farts are like firecrackers -- loud and exciting, but mostly harmless. These were more like tactical nuclear weapons. They were noticeable from the other side of the house, and had my sister actually calling me through the intercom to ask if I had farted or if she should start looking in her nose to see if a piece of cat shit had somehow lodged itself inside. That was exactly what it smelled like -- that thick, foul, greasy odor of fresh cat shit, a smell that a cat owner will tell you reaches down into your guts, makes a fist, and twists a little. The kind that takes two Brawny paper towels to clean up and makes you almost vomit twice.
The gas continued for almost twelve hours and then abated suddenly, leaving in its place a feeling like a gutful of lead. I could tell from that feeling that -- although I didn't need to poop, and couldn't have if I tried -- when it finally decided to pull an Elvis and exit the building, I was going to have to explain it to a screaming crowd.
Four o'clock Sunday morning, Elvis rolled over and woke me up. Before this I'd been wakened by the urgent need to piss, but never for a dump.
Never, until The King snapped his fingers and demanded backup dancers.
I walked to the bathroom calmly, not knowing whether it would be a four-hour cramper or a six-second butt boogie, but prepared for either. As far as technical details go, it came out as four semi-hard logs, well-formed and without particulate inclusions of any kind, although I had eaten corn since my last dook. The entire session lasted approximately twenty minutes -- but, due to the events that will be recounted shortly, seemed to take much, much longer.
Before being wakened, I had been sleeping on my back, leaving both nostrils clogged evenly. The ear infection was making me dizzy to the point that it actually seemed like the room was moving. If the bathroom hadn't been ten feet away from my door it might have been a challenge to get there. Essentially, it was like being extremely drunk, but without the pleasant stupor.
About halfway through the dump (perhaps two-and-a-half logs in), a sinus cavity began to drain unevenly, and I actually heard a small pop as an air bubble broke through the mucus. My nose began to drain, so I grabbed a piece of handy toilet paper, and with two mighty heaves had blown out at least two ounces of snot from my nose.
The next inhale I took -- through a now-open nose -- literally made me gasp. In my state it was more like a croak, and it actually burned my throat (whether this was from the strep or a large dose of shit particles in the air irritating the swollen glands, I won't speculate). Through the haze of fever I suddenly realized that it was MY OWN SHIT I was smelling; and as I sat, helpless and unable to move lest I dislodge a turd, the science-minded portion of my brain began to work things out as the rest thought to itself, "HOLY CHRIST DID THAT SMELL ACTUALLY COME OUT OF MY BUNG!?"
You are all familiar with how smells wear off -- once you've smelled something for a long time, you can't smell it anymore. Your cologne, a dead fish, cat shit, they seem to wear off as your scent receptors get tired. Most times when you crap, not only are you eased into the smell as the excrement collects and simmers in the bowl, but the scent wears off as the stench is reaching a head. Here, though, I had dropped myself directly into the maw of a truly malodorous beast of a turd.
It's difficult, now, for me to find words to describe it. At the time, it was mostly four-letter words I used in my surprise.
I spent a summer working at a funeral home. I was, in a sense, a glorified janitor. I washed and waxed the hearse, I vacuumed the vestibule, I polished the pews, I straightened pictures, I did whatever needed to be done because it paid so well -- $9 an hour when minimum was $5.15. Once, though, the embalmer showed me the meat locker. He gave me some Vicks to put under my nose, but, fool that I was, I thought it would be unnecessary. They only do that on TV, right? They're embalmed, right?
The combination of embalming fluid, decaying human meat, excrement, and bleach was the most gut-wrenching, disgusting thing I had ever experienced. I vomited continuously for twenty minutes after two whiffs of the meat locker.
Now, if you can, imagine that, mixed with fresh two-Brawny cat shit and roadkill, and that was what I was dropped into without warning. It was possibly the worst situation I have ever found myself in in a bathroom. Dizzy, retching, and utterly trapped by Elvis motorcade.
Ultimately I survived, but only by using toilet paper as a crude filter while I finished the purge. I even considered skipping the flush just to escape to fresh air, but knew that leaving Elvis to ferment any longer than the four seconds it would take to stand and flush would spell doom for humanity. As I flushed, I had nightmare visions of overflow. Although I had used the barest minimum of tissue to prevent that particular disaster, I knew it was entirely possible that I had given birth to a new species of sentient stench, one capable of influencing the flow of water and the chemical structure of porcelain. I was ready to shut off the water valve at the first hint of a high tide, but the King didn't falter on his first steps toward the ocean.
