Shuffling Off A Mortal Coil

(Editor's note: This first appeared a week or two ago in the forums [1].)

A couple of hours ago, my phone rang. It was my best (non-PoopReport) friend, Kathy. "Get over here, quick, Dumpster!" she wailed.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" I asked. Turns out her thirteen-year-old daughter, who is a pathological overachiever (she's been in therapy), had been, unbeknownst to anyone, holding her turd in for A MONTH. When it finally came out, it -- you guessed it -- stopped up the commode. My plumbing skills, second only to my lawyering abilities, were needed.

However, I thought about Kathy's husband. "Where's Waldo?" I asked. (I swear I am using these people's real names!)

"You know Waldo can't handle stuff like this!" she cried. "Now just hang up the G-- D--- (sorry, Doniker) phone and get your ass over here!"

Ever the gentleman, I grabbed my pipe snake and complied.

It was, truly, a world-class brown anaconda. The biggest piece of human butt cable I've ever seen. (And that's saying a lot.) I have no idea how big this Leviathan of the loo was to start with because poor little Holly had managed to flush part of it down before it clogged the pipes, but I swear there was at least three feet of it coiled around upon itself, as thick around as a beer can, evilly swirling in the filthy, overflowing water, defying all comers, not to mention the quart or two of diarrhea that was mixed in with it. The stench was unbearable. The whole scene was enough to gag a maggot. Holly was curled up in a ball on the floor of her closet, sobbing in pain and shame (and, I suspect, a bit of relief as well). I told Kathy to get me a couple of big garbage bags and a mop, and then go see about Holly.

Taking a last lungful of fresh air, I closed the bathroom door and went to do battle with Turdzilla.

Experienced PoopReporters know the drill: first you say farewell to your shoes. Second, you squish across the bathroom and shut off the water supply to the commode. Third, you put one thirty-gallon garbage bag inside the other, stick your hand in it, and use this prophylaxis like The Big Wiper's glove [2] to extract the offending fecal matter.

The part floating near the top was soft and squishy, and I had to pull it -- or, rather, smear it -- into the bag one slimy, stinking handful at a time. Further down, however, it gradually turned to solid concrete, and I thought I would have had to use a chain saw to cut up the last twelve to fourteen inches. Fortunately, however, it broke loose from whatever part was down in the trap and I was able to get it into the bag.

Suddenly, though, I realized through my nausea that there was also a small amount of bright red blood in the water. Poor Holly had given herself an anal fissure in passing this monster. I quickly stepped to the bathroom door and called out to Kathy to take Holly to the emergency room, but she and Waldo had already figured that out and gone. (Fortunately, Waldo happens to be a doctor.) At least I could leave the bathroom door open and get a little bit of oxygen.

I had to use the trashcan to bail as much of the remaining shit-filled water out of the commode as I could. I dumped it into the bathtub, knowing I was giving myself another problem to deal with, but desperate times demand desperate measures. Then I went to work with my trusty pipe snake. As soon as it went into the trap, I felt it hit the clog.

Sometimes you can just give it a good push and it moves on, but this logjam wasn't going anywhere. If you've ever used a snake, you know how they work: you turn the crank at one end, and this turns a blade-like thing at the business end that slowly grinds up the blockage. Problem is, you have to pull the snake out and push it back in periodically, all the while bringing more nasty pieces of shit and toilet paper back up into the bowl. Each time you achieve a bit more penetration.

Forgive me for saying this, but any notions I've ever had about anal sex being fun are gone for good.

Finally, after grinding through eight to ten inches of sludge, I felt the snake pop through. By this time I was down on my knees to get more leverage (goodbye to that pair of pants, too), and I worked the snake back and forth several times to enlarge the opening. Mercifully, I was rewarded with the water level in the bowl beginning to drop, so I remove the snake and cautiously pulled the flush lever. (Did I mention that this is one of those damned low-flow bowls? Will TSV please run for president and restore unto us our national birthright of a 3.5-gallon flush?)

The bowl filled, and filled, but just as it reached the rim, it emptied with a satisfying gurgle.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I couldn't help but hum to myself the words of the Doxology: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow / Praise Him, all creatures here below..." I turned the supply line back on and was further blessed with a series of trouble-free flushes.

The rest of the story is anticlimactic. Thank goodness Kathy had plenty of Pine-Sol and Clorox so I was able to leave the bathroom in pristine condition. I discarded the garbage bag full of poop and the ruined bathmat in -- tee hee! -- the next-door neighbor's dumpster (they are out of town), came home, and took the longest shower of my life.

Kathy called just a few minutes ago from the hospital. They had to cauterize the fissure in poor Holly's little bum, and they're keeping her there in the ER for a couple of hours to make sure there are no complications. X-rays show that she has been doing this to herself for so long that she's distended her bowel, and her pediatric gastroenterologist (did you know that there was such a specialty?) has ordered her to drink magnesium citrate every day for the next two to three months to allow her colon to resume normal proportions. Even then, there's no guarantee, and the child may be facing a bowel resection.

This story is just too gross, and too tragic, to be funny. How could such a brilliant little girl do this to herself? Her psychiatrist, who came in to the ER, explained that this isn't all that uncommon among adolescent female overachievers, and that it is a "control" issue, almost like a reverse form of bulimia. Anyway, Kathy and Waldo are sitting down at the hospital right now, feeling like miserable failures as parents. I don't think I'll be able to eat for a week, I'm so revolted by what I just went through. I guess I need to suck it up and go down there to be with them, though.