I was abruptly startled awake. I lay quietly in bed, listening intently for anything out of the ordinary. Then I heard it: a deep, low, guttural growl that faded into a moist gurgling sound, followed immediately by a gut wrenching onslaught of lower abdominal cramping that made my intestines feel as though they were being fed through an old-time wringer washer.

I vainly tried to recollect what I had eaten the evening prior that would have precipitated such an event. The mental effort began to take its toll and I soon started to doze again. But the sudden intense and unwelcome presence of a couple bazillion cubic yards of dangerously-pressurized flatus beating against the sphincter ripped me back to alertness.

Speaking of ripped, that's just what I did: I ripped one. Or two. Or... damn it! That's no fart.

The spreading warmth beneath me told me that I had missed an important rendezvous with the white porcelain god. In short, I shit my shorts.

I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and stood up. Clenching my teeth, my fists, and my butt cheeks, I made my way to the bathroom door. As I drew closer, I felt the rivulets of hot liquid trickling maddeningly down the back of my legs.

I really thought I was home free until another bowel-busting cramp hit.

From a completely objective point of view, it may have appeared most interesting. From where I was, lurching toward the toilet in agony, it was devastating. The effect was similar to a sumo wrestler breakdancing on a tube of toothpaste. The sound, reminiscent of a bull elephant with a sore throat bellowing through a rusty tuba underwater, was loud enough to wake the dead. A molten geyser of liquishit sprayed out my butt like a fire hose.

The smell was... memorable.

By now I was lowering my besmirched bum onto the toilet. Another wave of cocoa-colored-caca hit the inside of the bowl like a tsunami. Certain I had just shit ten years of life right down the plumbing, I sagged back against the tank to catch my breath. Another wave of gas hit, accompanied by the obscene sound of a nuclear-powered raspberry. My wife, awakened by the industrial strength sound and fury, came into the bathroom to see if I was still alive.

"Wow, you stink!" she said, making a face. She can be so sympathetic at times.

"And you've got poop all over everything." I looked at her in dismay. She is supposed to be a comfort to me when I feel down -- not a commentator on how badly I soiled myself. Where is all this much-vaunted feminine compassion?

"You've got it on the back of your legs, too." I could just feel the love in that room.

"You've REALLY got the shits." No kidding -- I thought my ass had started to melt.

Eventually my bowels had run out of ammo to hurl at the septic tank. I dragged my now-desiccated carcass to the shower while wifey stripped and made the bed.

When I got up the next morning, I commented on how beat I felt. My darling spouse smiled sweetly and said that before I went back to bed the night before, I really looked "pooped."

Some days I think if she weren't so damn pretty and sexy, I'd cuff her right upside the head.