One such incident occurred shortly after the end of my second year. By the time summer came rolling around, I moved back in with my parents and got a vacation job in a mail room, processing large mail-outs, and -- when not working -- going out for a few drinks at night. An easy, carefree college vacation! One day, during a week of working the night shift, I rose at one PM after a good sleep. I decided to go into town and do some shopping. After I had made all my purchases, I felt hungry, so I went to a sandwich shop and bought a prawn sandwich. Great! I love seafood, and hadn't had prawns for some time. I sat outside on a bench normally occupied by senior citizens and spent a good twenty minutes leafing through the newspaper, drinking a nice, cool beverage, and polishing off the prawns.
Breakfast completed, I started to walk towards the bus stop. I felt absolutely fine during the five-minute stroll. I also felt completely healthy during the ten-minute wait for the bus. It wasn't until I plonked myself onto a seat that I felt the first stirrings of impending doom. "Rumbling?" I thought, as I tried to make myself comfortable. "That's weird -- I've just eaten." I didn't realize that what I had eaten might have had something to do with the discomfort I was experiencing.
The bus pulled out into the road. The diesel engine's roar just about masked my stomach's own low gurgle.
It was already quite a hot day, and I started to sweat even more than I had been. I felt the rumblings getting lower. In regards to the prawns, my stomach had obviously thought, "Bollocks to this!" and prematurely emptied them into my duodenum. But I just thought it was a bad fart waiting to happen. Since I lived only a few miles away, I figured I'd simply hold it in until I got to the bus stop at the bottom of the street, let go as soon as I got off the bus, and walk the remaining distance with no trouble.
I was disabused of that notion pretty quickly. Every bump the bus went over helped the snack-joint shit-inducer progress further through my GI tract. Every jolt at a junction stirred things up even more -- it was as though I had a witch in my guts, and her ladle was agitating my colonic cauldron. It was about halfway through the journey when I realized that this feeling was very similar to the one I'd experienced several times during an extended antibiotics course I'd undergone. I realized that if this were merely a fart, I would be as lucky as someone who won the football pools, the lottery, and the Grand National on the same day. By now I was clenching so hard that I could have cracked a walnut with my voluntary sphincter. I didn't dare relax one fiber of abdominal muscle.
My forehead now beaded with sweat, I noticed that the bus was approaching my stop. Thank God! I got up, rang the bell, and then shuffled towards the front of the bus. When it stopped I thanked the driver, alighted, and then waited for a gap in the traffic so I could cross the road and walk up the street. I managed to walk the quarter of a mile or so home in fits and starts -- every few yards I would experience excruciating cramps that made me stop and draw up to my full height. I was a puppet -- or more accurately, a poopet, controlled not by strings, but by a sphincter.
Once home, I burst into the front door and immediately tried the handle of the very conveniently located downstairs toilet.
"What? What?" shouted my dad, obviously having a dump of his own.
"Sorry," I said, making for the stairs, hearing the mumbles of my dad through the door: "Bloody hell, I can't even have a shit in peace. Frigging hell! Use the upstairs one! Jesus!"
I flew upstairs. Yes! The bathroom was empty! I closed the door, put the toilet lid up, sat down, and relaxed.
SPPPPLLLLLASHHHHHHH.
A surprisingly painless evacuation accompanied the above onomatopoeia, executed in about three seconds. Ah, the relief. But just as I reached for the bog roll, another plug of liquid shot out. And then another.
After about a minute spent waiting for any further surprises that might occur, I wiped, got up, flushed, and pulled up my trousers. Washing my hands, I felt the rumbling again. My anus quivered. I knew what was going to happen. I immediately pulled my trousers back down, sat on the still warm toilet seat, and again relaxed.
FSQWPLOOOOOOOOOOOP!
Yet more liquid came out. My plight reminded me of a stopcock reopened after several days' plumbing work -- only the force with which this rusty water emerged was enough to power a jet ski.
After this second stint, I wiped, got up, flushed, pulled up my trousers, and went to the sink -- and promptly had to take my trousers down, sit on the toilet, and release yet more putrid prawn broth.
Getting up from the toilet the third time caused me to feel faint. Hardly surprising -- I must have lost at least a couple of pints of water, so my body fluid compartments were about as balanced as a one-legged man with an inner ear infection. Steadying myself on the towel rail, it took me about half a minute to regain sufficient composure to attempt the few steps to the sink.
Coming out of the bathroom, I was met by my mum. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yeah, thanks -- I am now. But I thought I had dysentery for a moment there."
I went downstairs, thoroughly (and literally) drained. I went to the kitchen for some much-needed water, and then flopped on the sofa in the living room. After the first pint of water, I felt those familiar noises emanating from my stomach...
To cut a very long story short, I'll just tell you that I've forgotten how many times I sat on the toilet that afternoon and evening; but I do remember that it took several glasses of water before I managed not to excrete more fluid than I had drunk. My arse felt as though it had been wiped with pumice stone, and the rest of my body was ready for a good, long sleep. Unfortunately, I then had to stand at the end of a mail machine for eight hours and batch letters; but at least I no longer had to dash to the toilet.
I would like to warn you, Dear Readers, never to buy any seafood from a sandwich shop unless you can be absolutely certain that it's fresh. No matter how nice it might be to have a prawn sandwich, it isn't worth severe shits and compensatory constipation for two days afterwards. Although at least that repercussion gave my ringpiece a rest.