All that I could produce was shit marbles; and being a Shameful Shitter at the time, the little plops that the shit marbles made upon hitting the water were not appreciated. So I tried the senna again. I took the recommended dosage -- double-strength, mind you. The next morning: nothing. That night I took the recommended dosage again; and again, nothing. I now had four double-strength senna tabs in my body. "Something has to happen soon," I thought.

The next morning I produced maybe a dozen or so shit marbles again. I took four more senna tabs that night, only to be greeted yet again by nothing the next morning.

It was now Sunday morning. My mom called. She started complaining to me about her job. "I'm complaining to Mr. Freyburg about that laundry chute."

"What about it?"

"I opened the chute Friday morning," she replied, "and there was a bat looking up at me!"

"So what did you do?" I asked.

She exclaimed, "I slammed the door on the chute and yelled, ‘Bat, bat!'"

While we talked, I kept a close ear for any rumblings in my bowels. Nothing. "Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?" she asked. I figured a change of scenery would be good for her, so I said yes.

We went out to dinner later that evening. I went straight to the salad bar. I had everything: raw mushrooms, raw spinach, pickled beets, raw broccoli, onions, every kind of lettuce that was offered except romaine. You name it, I had it. Worst of all, I topped this concoction off with lots of olive oil and vinegar dressing. On top of that, I ate a huge meal cooked in cayenne pepper. All this was on a base of two cans of ale from earlier that day.

Suddenly I felt the sleeping giant inside of me begin to toss and turn. My stomach began to cramp. I knew it wasn't going to be long before I needed a bathroom. All I could hope for is that the check came, and fast. Along with my concoction that I had just eaten, I had eight double strength senna pills in my system; and as the check came around, I began to feel a wrenching pain in my lower bowels. "I hope I have enough time to get home," I thought. By the time we left the restaurant, there was quite a storm brewing inside of me.

I took my mother straight home. I drove home as fast as I could, hoping that I wasn't going to run out of luck. The brown tide was moving fast and furious, but not quite ready to bust the gates just yet.

But about three-quarters of the way home, the assault on my ass finally began.

This was the kind of assault that only an iron ass could survive. By the time I made it to my own driveway, my stomach was wrenched up and I felt like my butt was holding back Niagara Falls. I clenched my cheeks and sprinted straight to the toilet. Just as I sat down the shit came pouring out of me in a torrent, splashing everything in its wake; but once again my iron ass did its job and spared my clothes from the brown tide. After filling the toilet in five minutes flat, I flushed round number one and started on round two, filling the toilet a second time.

The cramping in my stomach began to subside, but now my ass was raw, throbbing, and heaving. A terrible gripe overcame my rectum. It almost felt like I was going to shit out my guts themselves.

After I finished wiping, I sat there and put a warm face cloth over my agitated and aching rectum. After about five more minutes, the cramps were gone and my rectum stopped griping and heaving. The toilet was so full of this semi-liquid poop that it gurgled with all of its might. It took a second flush to remove the leftovers from the first flush.

I went back downstairs and looked at the clock. I was astounded that I was in the bathroom for almost forty minutes. I learned a valuable lesson from this: I never made a pig of myself at the salad bar while I was overdosing on senna ever again.