I am half of an interracial couple. My husband is a brotha and I'm a patty. We live in New York City. My husband, like husbands of all colors, enjoys a night out with the boys. He especially enjoys a night out with the brothas. So every couple of weeks or so, my husband has a night out with his similarly-hued guy friends. They go to jazz clubs, nightclubs, and sometimes to cultural stuff in Harlem like plays or spoken word performances.

One night his cell phone rang its R&B riff. It was his friend Tim, in town from Los Angeles for a few days. Tim wanted to go out, catch up, and party. Plus, he had a rental car -- a convertible! For folks in NYC who generally only ride in yellow cars where you sit in the back and pay by the mile, this is a rare treat. And even more so for my husband, who is from L.A. and misses driving. He used to have a Porsche.

The two guys rode the convertible to a cool soul food restaurant. My husband had the shrimp special. Dunno what Tim had. Then Tim mentioned that he was hoping to hook up with an old girlfriend now living in Jersey. He had called earlier to say he'd be in the area. She replied that she was having a party that night at her place, so come on over, and bring otha brothas and sistas if you want.

So off to Jersey they went. As they sped over the George Washington Bridge, my husband let out a few fetid farts. That made him even happier to be in a convertible, since the stench swiftly swept away into the New York City skyline. He is a Shameful Shitter. Unlike most guys I know, he fears farting in front of his friends.

But the farts were just a precursor of what was to come (out). Suddenly my husband began to feel a Los Angeles-like tremor in his belly. The magnitude of his turdquakes continued to increase, mirroring Tim's speedometer.

A few agonizing minutes later, Tim rolled up to his old girl's place and called her to announce that he and anotha brotha were about to join the party. No answer. Dialed again. No answer! Just a message playing Mary J. Blige over and over again. My husband clenched all four of his cheeks. Then he told Tim what was "going down." Not an easy thing for a Shameful one.

Tim wasn't troubled. He recalled that there was a great club nearby and he raced to it, screeching into the club's parking lot. They paid the cover charge and were in! Tim strolled to the bar and my husband sprinted to the men's room. It had one stall. Empty! Unbuckling, he was ready for relief at last. But then he noticed that there was no toilet paper.

Re-buckled, with his intestinal seismograph going off the charts, he found Tim at the bar chatting with a cute sista. He signaled to the bartender and told him about the problem in the men's room. The bartender advised him to go to the bouncer at the club's front door.

So my Shameful husband, very very close to dooking his designer duds, whispered to the bouncer about the TP situation in the men's room. The bouncer yelled "No problem!" as he pulled a roll from beneath the little podium where he held court, handing it to my husband with a flourish.

At the door, crowds of people looking like a casting call for a BET video were swaggering (the guys) and slithering (the girls) into the club, dressed to the nines (the guys) or hardly dressed at all (the girls). And there was my husband, in full view in front of them, being handed a roll of toilet paper by the bouncer!

He was mortified. He tucked the roll under his arm to try to hide it as he made his way through the crowd... past the coat check... across the dance floor... around the bar... and back to the men's room. The stall was still empty! His poop was estimated at 8.5 on the Richter scale.

He felt better after releasing the seismic pressure. About 8.5 pounds better. But somehow, his belly was still ominously rumbling. He pried Tim away from a sista with the biggest butt in New Jersey for a private S.O.S., telling him that he felt sick and needed to go home NOW. Good friend that he is, Tim said, "Let's go."

Once again my poor husband couldn't enjoy a convertible ride across the George Washington Bridge. He couldn't even enjoy farting anymore. He felt aftershocks rumbling, threatening a quake high off the scale.

Home at last, he pooped seven more times that night. The next morning I hoped to hear tales of his night's fun. But he was so sick he could barely speak. He had a fever and he alternated between the chills and sweating. I bundled him in blankets, and fed him Gatorade to restore his electrolytes and aspirin to reduce his fever.

I wanted to read him some Poop Reports to cheer him up, but I didn't think he'd appreciate them at that time. So as he slept I went online and found Earthquake Loading: Buckling of Thin Cylindrical Shells with Cracks Subjected to Shear Load [1]". Perfect! Nah...

Diagnosis: food poisoning, probably from the shrimp special. Thankfully my husband recovered, and has enjoyed many more boys' nights out since. Unlike me and my girls' night out at the tapas and oyster bar. But that's another story...

-- Crapola [2]