It was the day of my orientation at the aerospace industry supply company where I had just been hired. It was the policy of this company for every new employee to meet the CEO. You get the picture: some greenhorn just-graduated college kid with a few remaining pimples on his nose sits with an accomplished and powerful fifty-eight-year-old who, rumor had it, hung out with Bill Gates when he was younger.

Nervous as a titmouse, I slunk into the facility that morning already soused with about five cups of coffee slathering around in my belly. I'm a nervous cat. I really didn't want to meet the CEO. I just wanted to do my crappy management trainee job from nine to five and leave without any fanfare.

Upon arrival, I downed a bran muffin that tasted like a bat turd and another half-pot of coffee. I knew it was a mistake but I'm obsessive/compulsive, and if there's coffee or goodies set in front of me, I drink and eat them.

The CEO finally came out of his hidey-hole looking quite ill to my untrained eye, with an unhealthy red flush in his cheeks. "I'm sick," he said after introducing himself. "A touch of the stomach flu. But we'll spend a half-hour together anyways, if you don't mind." After shaking hands, I tried to wipe the sticky gumbo he'd left on my right hand onto my polyester trousers. I detected a whiff of monkey death. Did I mind? Yes. This guy smelled like a melted jar of Mexican prison-issue Cheez Whip. Sweaty, greasy sweat globules poured down his brow; his breath reminded me of the festering tailpipe of a chinchilla.

"I need to use the restroom," I heard myself say. I needed to get away from this guy before I vomited up chunks of intestine.

"You can use the executive room," he said. And then he dropped the deuce:

"I need to go, myself."

This worried me, since I was about to download a serious tube of Brylcreem.

The restroom was pristine and had mirrors everywhere. Barry Manilow had been imported from some desperate elevator music company. I clunked my hairless kipper onto the tungsten-flavored seat and plastered the bowl with a liberal amount of dookie. It spattered all over the bowl and up onto my tailpipe.

After wiping with a space-age paper that smelled of dandelions, I got up and looked for the handle, knowing this was three flushes, minimum.

No handle.

Wouldn't you know, this toilet had one of the sensors that detected the consistency of the poop before flushing it down.

I started to panic. I stepped out of the stall. I stepped in. I flashed my hand in front of the sensor. I pounded on the sensor. I wiped the sensor. I spit on the sensor. The flaming pile of goat whip started to burn my nose hairs.

And then I heard the CEO knocking on the door. "You okay in there?" he called.

A phlegmball coated my throat. In a voice that sounded like Ernest Borgnine after drinking a barium enema, I said, "Give me a second."

I begged the sensor to flush down the pile. Nothing happened.

I started to plan. Maybe I could scoop it into a bucket and carry it out of there? But no, I could hear him in the back of my mind, saying, "Why are you carrying a pail of poop out of my bathroom?"

I gave up, washed my hands, and opened the door. The whiff hit his nostrils and he looked at me as if I had just announced on Dr. Phil that I was marrying Tom Cruise's brother Larry.

I only lasted four months on that job. Every time I saw the CEO, he gave me a nasty look. I went on to grad school and pretended like I'd never had a job after college at all.