It was Spring Break of my freshman year and I was going to Los Angeles with two of my dorm-mates, Tom and Dan. Tom was from L.A. and the fact that we would be using his parents' house as our home base for our drinking and drugging adventures didn't seem to bother him. His dad was a doctor, so he was never home, and Tom assured us that although his mother did a lot of yelling and screaming whenever he stayed out all night, she never did anything about it -- all bark and no bite. I was a little wary of the whole situation and what I'd heard of his mom, but decided to not worry about it.

We arrived at Tom's house after a 30-hour drive, smoking pot and snorting meth and cocaine all the way. His mom insisted on showing us around right away, even though we were obviously toasted, wired, and in need of sleep. She was totally hyper and whisked us away before we could unpack our car, shower, or even brush our teeth. She drove us to the beach, but when we asked if we could get out, she whirled around from the driver's seat and hissed, "That's a Black beach!"

Next, she took us to Pink's for their famous huge hot dogs with chili, cheese, jalapeño peppers, guacamole, onions, bacon, and anything else you could imagine. I thoroughly enjoyed the two gigantic gut-bombs that she bought for me, but it was time to ditch the crazy bitch mom.

After an afternoon nap, we hit the town -- an all night binge of drinking and drugs in pure LA style. We spent the morning recuperating at the "Black Beach," and then went to Denny's for some breakfast.

That night we went to East LA for some El Salvadoran food and then out for more party action. We lost steam early as the long drive and the night before caught up with us, so we ended up back at Tom's by 3 AM ready to catch some sleep.

As I lay in the dark trying to sleep, I felt a slight tremor. Earthquake? This was, after all, Southern California. No, this was much closer and yet still distant. As I recognized that the rumbling was actually in my gut and that a giant Havana Omelet had begun to heat up down in the galley, what I had been doing to my body for the past few days flashed before my eyes. Visions of south-of-the-border specialties, giant loaded hot dogs, and Moons Over My-Hammy danced in my head, and I came to a shocking realization: I hadn't punched a grumpy since New Mexico! Four days worth of foul, beer-soaked sewage was backed up and about to jettison into my shorts!

I ran to the bathroom down the hall and parked myself on the bowl. From the way the shit pains were darting around my abdomen, I expected my rectal nozzle to squirt a high-velocity stream of hot yellow butt mustard. But for some reason, (perhaps the speed and coke), an entirely different animal was about to emerge from its lair -- a sphincter-stretching brick of thick dung.

Straining to expel this bulking burden of stale waste was a balancing act. I had to concentrate on pushing in a slow, steady pace to keep the mammoth butt bomb moving through, while not pushing too hard as to risk rupturing my taint and splitting my ass-crack further up my back. Wishing I were back in the dorm's handicrapper so I could grab onto the rails and wrassle this growling grizzlie out of its deep, dark cave, I closed my eyes, clenched my jaw, and pushed.

After what seemed like hours of labor, my spine straightened as the midpoint of the doogan passed through my leather Cheerio, dilating it beyond belief. My eyes watered and bugged out as I pushed with all my might until finally gravity took over and the shit zeppelin splash-landed below. Ah, sweet release...!

I began to breathe again, inhaling the thick pungent fog that surrounded me. I was relieved and proud of my accomplishment, and I became even prouder when I wiped 'round the ol' mudhole and saw no evidence. A clean break. Nice.

And then, I turned around. And there it was. The great Brown Whale, its head in the chute, its tail sticking up out of its polluted bath. Call me Ishmael.

I pulled the handle and the water rushed into the bowl -- and then raised in level as the mighty stool stood its ground. Luckily, water conservation was the thing in LA, so the water stayed under the rim and I thanked the shit gods for their mercy. Now all I needed was a wire hanger to break up this plug of plop and I'd be on my way to bed.

I opened the bathroom door to find a suitable chalupa chopper. As I did, I caught a flash of nightgown -- Tom's mom, heading my way. I slammed the door shut as she whispered "Tommy, is that you?" She was now outside the door. I held the knob as I felt her try to turn it from the other side.

"Hello? Who's in there?" she demanded.

I was gripped with fear as I gulped and replied, "Um, just a minute?"

Now, if I were in this situation today, I would probably face the music and invite that racist freak in to check out my grunt sculpture. But I was eighteen and insecure, trying to be a good guest in my friend's house, and, to top it off, a Shameful Shitter.

I was still gripping the doorknob with one hand as I locked the door with the other.

"Are you okay in there? I have to use the bathroom."

Damn! That's right, this Brady Bunch California ranch house had only one frickin' bathroom. What the hell? Tom's dad was some big shot doctor and their house only had one bathroom?

"Uh, just a minute, I'll be right out," I stammered.

I whirled around, looking for something I could use to saw the tree I had planted into flushable chunks. There was nothing, not even a plunger to assist me in my plight. I looked under the sink, in the medicine cabinet, in the shower... what was I going to do? A harpoonless Ahab, driven by panic, I returned to the toilet and flushed again, hoping that somehow Moby Brick had dissolved enough in his freshwater cove as to allow safe passage out to sea. It was a gamble, and I lost. Toilet water began spilling over the side and onto the tile floor.

I grabbed a towel and sopped at the spreading tide of cess. I hadn't heard anything from the other side of the door for a while and was hoping that Tom's mother had gone back to bed. But with only one bathroom in the house, I knew I had to act fast, no matter what.

My eyes landed on a small bathroom garbage pail, and a plan crystallized in my brain. Lining the can was a plastic bag from the grocery store, the contents of which I emptied back into the can. I put the bag over my hand and tried to grab as much of my fecal foe as possible. Not all of it came out on the first try, so I floated what I had been able to grab and clawed with a two-finger approach to root out the rest.

Just as I cleared the blockage, there was a knock at the door.

"Hey, are you okay in there?"

It was Tom's dad! I hadn't even met the guy yet. Here I was, a guest in his house, on my knees in his bathroom kneading my own filthy Play-Doh. Thank God for the lock.

"Barry, what are you doing in there?"

"I'll be out soon. Sorry," I squeaked back.

I heard Tom's mom whisper, "He's been in there for more than 20 minutes." Great. She woke her husband to tell on me for hogging the facilities.

"Son, are you doing drugs in my house?" He asked.

What the fuck? Where did that come from? I mean, sure we had some drugs with us, but he thinks I'm in here shooting heroin!

"No sir, I just don't feel well. I just need a couple more minutes and I'll be out."

"Well, alright. But if I find out that you're doing dope in there, you'll be out of my house in a flash, mister."

Now the pressure was really on. Instead of risking another flush, I decided to use the bag-on-the-hand technique to gather up the hunks of dense loaf and the smaller floaters into one handful. Holding onto as much of the poop as I could, I held the bag up above the bowl and let the excess water drain out. This wasn't a quiet operation, but I no longer cared about what it sounded like on the other side of the door. Like a professional dog walker, I pulled the bag in on itself so that the evidence was now in the bag, and tied the handles like Chinese take-out. But what to do with the bag of bungle?

I was in my underwear with no shirt, so it would be impossible to smuggle it out past the suspicious parents. The bathroom window opened enough to allow me to stick my head out. I looked over the back yard and gauged that I could probably lob the bag into the corner, where it would be out of sight until I could dispose of it properly. I held the bag by its ties, spun it around to give it some momentum, and let it fly. It sailed the distance and hit the ground with a thud. A nice shot, considering the pressure.

Encouraged, I picked up the wet towel, rung it out over the toilet, threw it in the hamper (oh well), and flushed again to clear the bowl and the huge skid mark as much as possible. I washed my hands and forearms, calling, "Just finishing up in here, be out in a sec," as cheerfully as I could muster.

I gave the room the once-over for any incriminating evidence, took a deep breath, and opened the door. They were all there, waiting for me -- Tom's mom, Tom's dad, Tom and Dan -- and they were all staring. I expected to be questioned about my alleged drug use, but the noxious fumes billowing out behind me left little doubt that I was not using the facilities to get my fix.

"Sorry," I said to no one in particular, my eyes on the floor as I made my way back to the guest bedroom.

Embarrassed and exhausted, I slept like a log. When I awoke the next afternoon, the parents were gone, and my friends heartily enjoyed the story, though Tom was a little distressed that I had thrown a fresh bag of crap into his yard.

I told him I would take care of it, and we went out to the backyard to find the shitsack. I walked to the corner, expecting to find it waiting for me. But it wasn't. There were no bushes or anything for it to be behind or under; it should have just been sitting there on the ground. I looked up at the bathroom window to get my bearings. I wasn't mistaken -- this was the right corner.

We were beginning to giggle. "Maybe a dog took it," Dan suggested. Tom countered that his family didn't have a dog and that the fence kept anybody else's out of their yard. We looked around some more, shrugged, and went back inside.

During Graduation Week more than three years later, I was playing bass in a band at an outdoor show on campus. In the middle of our set, I looked up and, among the crowd of students and visiting parents, I saw Tom's parents and smiled at them.

I hadn't encountered Tom's parents again until that point. For the rest of our LA trip, we didn't really see them that much -- and when we did, they were preoccupied and nothing was ever said of the incident. Now, 1,000 days and 3,000 miles separated from their bathroom, Tom's mother pointed at me, whispered something to her husband, and they turned and walked away.

It's entirely possible she said something like, "Oh look, there's Tom's friend, Barry...oh, we're late for the parents reception." But more than likely she said, "There's that disgusting pervert who locked himself in our bathroom, played with his shit, put it in a bag, and threw it in our yard for me to pick up... oh, we're late for the parents reception."

I'll never know, and I really don't care. She should have just waited politely until I was done. After all, I was a guest.

-- Barry Dingle