I discovered a long time ago without anyone telling me that squatting is a more fitting shitting-position than sitting. Just be careful not to fall into a hazard I incurred!

In college I first learned to squat -- and thereby mitigate messy wipings, cramps, and, often, constipation. I learned to do it even in public potty stalls. I was precarious at first, but I learned to take off my pants and panties, stand on the potty rim and squat and dump my poop. It was my routine way of doing it, and it never caused any problem until I returned to my hometown after college.

There I went into my favorite department store, the place of some of my fondest memories from childhood, the place of fondest-remembered Christmas shopping where those "visions of sugarplums" really danced in my head bigtime back then. While in that store on returning from college, I had to poop, and naturally sought out a bathroom to use with my preferred squatting technique. I found one.

It had two stalls, but one was out of service, the john completely removed at the time. I thought that would only increase my solitude in using the one functioning stall. How wrong I was! I got into that stall, locked the door, bared my lower half, got up on the rim, squatting to let go a healthy poo.

As it was oozing out a loud commotion suddenly erupted as a group of loud-mouthed little girls burst into the room. One came vigorously shaking the stall door trying to open it, and announced loudly, "It's locked". Another smartily replied, "Well, crawl under it!"

Suddenly I was panicking about this troop of cussing brats, realizing they were about to crawl under and see me in an unconventional pooping act. It quickly occurred to me for the first time ever that my position, leaving no feet visibly hanging down, could indeed give someone the illusion that the locked stall was unoccupied. Still these kids' aggressive invasiveness was over-the-top -- well, uh you know what I mean, literally under the bottom but still over-the-top in the sense I mean it. I had to do something about it and fast.

I jumped down to the floor, trying in the process to aim the now mostly-out-of-my-ass turd into the bowl. It missed, landing on the floor. By then, two girls had their heads under the door. The one closest to where my turd fell cried out, "The bitch is trying to shit in my face!" The one farther in front of her from my perspective just let out a blood-curdling yell that must have been audible all over the store.

Soon a bunch of people rushed into the bathroom to see what was happening. Seems both men and women were present, for whatever that's worth, but in the terror my memory could have failed me. One of the girls had by now unlocked the stall door and flung it open. There I was standing for a crowd to see, bare from the waist down, my pants and panties hanging on a hook, my big turd on the floor, its remains squeezed messily between my butt cheeks, and a mob of little girls screaming hysterically about me.

The first thing some employees did was to seize my pants and pocketbook for a while (to inspect for suspicion of shoplifting, I was later begrudgingly told). Everybody yelling at once didn't seem to subside for the eternity after which my pants were finally brought back and I was told in a most hostile voice to put the back on. Once I did, I was escorted by a mob of employees to the store office, one woman feeling like she was about to pinch off my arm at the elbow.

Getting there, I found the police had been called. I was sternly talked down to, given no chance to defend myself in any way or explain I had by no means tried to intentionally poop on anybody. I'm sure when my turd fell, it couldn't have hit anybody's face, as I clearly remember the two girls crawling face-down at that time; anything that hit would have been in back. But one girl produced evidence of poop on her forehead, which she must have smeared there.

It ended with me being told I was forever banned from that store and never to return, and that I was darned lucky no one was pressing charges. Thus some of my once-fondest childhood memories were forever sullied, all because I'd learned to do something a healthier way.

-- Cheryl