Usually we took turns driving, so at the time of this incident, Jenny was behind the wheel. There we were, traveling the interstate on a cold Sunday evening in January, listening to campy eighties acts like Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, and Wang Chung, when all of a sudden I began to get a vague feeling of discomfort from within my internal workings. No worries, I thought to myself. It's just the pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, and onion pizza that I'd had for lunch earlier in the day talking back to me a little bit. We were less than half-an-hour from arriving back at school, and I figured we'd be there long before things started getting really serious down there.
All of a sudden, like a hunting knife gutting a deer, a huge cramp cut through me, and the pizza began doing jumping jacks and cartwheels inside my stomach. I realized with horror that if I didn't find a restroom soon, I would have my very own personal toxic landfill inside my pants.
"Um, Jenny," I said, trying to keep the rising feeling of panic out of my voice. "Can we stop at the next rest area?"
Anxious to get back to school so she could call her boyfriend, Jenny gave me an exasperated look. "Oh, come on, Little Lord Fartleroy, can't you hold it a little longer? We'll be back at school in twenty minutes."
Just then another horrendous cramp seized me, and by the look of contorted agony on my face my sister could see that my request involved much more than just a simple draining of the ol' lizard.
"Okay, hang on," she said. "The rest area is just ahead."
"Well, hurry! I can't hold back much more."
We passed a blue highway sign that stated "Rest Area -- 2 Miles." I moaned audibly, and my tormented innards convulsed angrily. In my current state of misery, two miles seemed like the distance between the earth and the sun. In response, Jenny stepped on the accelerator and the speedometer crept up to seventy.
"Can't you make this thing go any faster?" I whined.
"If I go any faster, I could get a ticket," said Jenny. This was back when the speed limit was still just fifty-five.
"I'll pay for the damn ticket!" I bawled. "Just get me to the rest area, quick!" The speedometer moved up to seventy-five.
We came to another highway sign. "Rest Area -- 1 mile." I cursed loudly and writhed around in the seat like a freshly-caught fish flopping around in a rowboat, trying desperately to keep at bay for just a little longer the smoldering brown torrent that was surging up inside me. My sister glanced over at me with concern and pushed the speed up to eighty.
Another sign: "Rest Area, Next Right." Finally!
Jenny slowed the car down as we entered the ramp to the rest area, but she was still racing me pretty fast towards my hoped-for salvation. She pulled into the first free parking space. I already had the door open and one foot on the ground before she came to a complete stop. I bolted out without bothering to shut the door and waddled up the walkway to the restrooms as quickly as I was able, holding my butt cheeks together in an effort to keep the noxious ass sewage sloshing around in my guts from exploding into my Fruit of the Looms.
My efforts to maintain control of my sphincter until I could reach the blessed solace of the porcelain throne ultimately proved futile. Just as I put my hand on the door handle to the men's restroom, I felt the warm, smelly, gooey sensation that we all know and dread fill up the backside of my pants and proceeded to cascade down my legs.
I slunk miserably into the nearest available stall to survey the damage. It was pretty bad. The underwear, of course, was a goner. My jeans were also pretty well saturated all the way through, with most of the back half having changed from blue to a very unattractive shade of brown. Even my socks were spotted with drops of waste product. I realized I had a problem.
The rest area was crowded that evening, and I had no desire to display my predicament to the other patrons by walking back to the car sporting a pair of extremely soiled pants. I desperately needed a change of clothes, of which I had some packed in my suitcase in the trunk. But I had no easy way to get to them. Just like these were the days of the fifty-five mile-per-hour speed limit, these were also the days before cell phones. So I couldn't call my sister to tell her what had happened.
As I was cleaning myself up and trying to figure a way of this mess, the restroom door opened and I heard an older male voice. "Excuse me -- is there a Little Lord Fartleroy in here?"
"That," I said, "would be me."
"Well, there's a young lady waiting outside, and she wanted me to ask if you're okay."
"Excuse me, sir?" I said meekly, "Can you do me a favor? That's my sister out there. Can you ask her to get a clean pair of pants, socks and underwear, and then give them to you, and then you bring them in to me?"
He hesitated for a second. "Umm... okay. Be right back."
There were several other guys in the restroom, and it was obvious to anyone within earshot what had happened. I heard the wise-ass in the next stall snort audibly and emit a suppressed chuckle. I sighed heavily as I realized there was simply no way I was going to emerge from this experience with any semblance of dignity.
A couple of minutes later, the guy that I sent on my mission of mercy came back in. Without a word, he slid my clean clothes under the stall door. "Thanks," I said.
"No problem," he replied, and hurried back out the door.
I finished cleaning myself up and put on the stuff the guy had brought me. Then I wrapped my damaged clothing in toilet paper and left the stall. I washed my hands quickly, avoiding eye contact with anyone, and hurried out of the rest room. Jenny was waiting for me out by the car, trying without much success to suppress her laughter.
"I guess I should have driven a little faster, huh?" she asked.
"Just get me out of here, quick."
To this day, I can't drive by that rest area without thinking of that fateful night.