As a Jersey boy born and raised, I found DC pretentious. Granted, it was interesting to experience something different from what I was used to, but it only solidified my opinion that NYC is truly the greatest city in the world. However, commuting to an apartment I rented with a friend in Virginia, I had a lot of extra time on my hands, so I used the federal government's excess resources to print poop reports for reading material for the bus and the commode. (Don't worry, I recycle!)
Because I had been reading PoopReport for a few months, I had become acutely aware of my bathroom habits. Unfortunately, due to quiet and spacious bathrooms that were usually empty, I had nothing significant to report. (Damn my regular bowels! Although there was a close call when the Secret Service screwed up my clearance info.) But I'm proud that I hadn't had the misfortune of shitting my new suits or having to use the sardine can they call a toilet on the commuter bus.
DC is almost exactly halfway between where I live in NJ and Virginia Tech, where my good friend from high school now goes to college. So living in Virginia put me a lot closer to him (we'll call him Dave) and allowed for a few weekend trips down to Blacksburg, tucked away in the rural (read: redneck) mountains of southwest Virginia.
I had visited before, but the campus is gorgeous in mid-spring, and Dave wanted to show me a good time. After a very normal breakfast (his mom sent him down to a school with real bagels, not sandwich rolls with holes punched out of the middle), we decided to go on a hike. Dave said it would be a long hike, so I made sure to squeeze out anything that may cause trouble later on. The eight miles up and down a three-thousand-foot mountain were exhausting, and by the time we made it back to the car, we were famished.
Like little Ralphie in The Christmas Story yearning for his teacher's approval of his Red Rider BB Gun report, I've been waiting for months for a story to make my PoopReport debut. I was like a photographer waiting for the perfect weather and light conditions to capture a breathtaking panorama. I was a hungry lion waiting to strike a helpless gazelle.
Dave knew of a farmhouse in a local town that had been converted into a southern family-style all-you-can-eat restaurant. The southern twangs and accents were coarse on our ears, but the food was good. We put away fried chicken, roast beef, pitchers of cool iced tea and lemonade, along with all the fixins: buttermilk biscuits, BBQ beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and more. We were making our way back to campus through winding backroads when the rumbling began. I hadn't reached critical mass, but I knew it would be best to find a bathroom as soon as possible. I was just beginning to wonder if I could, in fact, make it all the way back when -- damn! -- Dave announced that he needed to stop at the campus bookstore for a few knick-knacks. I put on a brave face and figured I would just ask for a bathroom when we arrived.
I waddled behind Dave for about two blocks, blaming my now-agitated bunion (remember: eight-mile hike!) for my uncomfortable gait. Once inside the store, I didn't care where Dave was or what he was looking for. I didn't even let him know that I would soon be MIA.
"Excuse me... where can I find your bathroom?"
"Oh, well, we don't have one in this building," said the emo-chic (pink-hair, pierced-nose) clerk. "But if you walk next door to the Donaldson Brown Building -- you know where that is, don't you?"
"No, sorry... I'm not from around here."
"Well if you go right over there... blah blah blah." I didn't hear the rest as I quickly made my way in the direction she pointed.
The spasms were strong and I was panicking. Even though my target was in sight, I didn't know if I could make it all the way, but I quickened my pace just the same. If I was going to lose my load, there was no way I was doing it in front of these students tying some large metal contraption to the roof of their car. (Dave theorized that there is a southern phenomenon in which the size of whatever it is you are trying to transport and the size of your vehicle have no relation to one another. As long as you have rope to tie it down, you could strap a fully-assembled gazebo and a small townhouse to the roof of a Mini Cooper.)
Wouldn't you know: just as I walked past them, I could feel a tiny burst a liquishit breach the floodgates. It was like a coat of Pam making my tectonic cheeks frictionless. It was at this moment that my journalistic instincts kicked in, for I knew this was my debut PoopReport in the making.
I practically sprinted into Donaldson Brown. When I reached the men's room, I found a reasonably clean stall and tore my pants down to my ankles. The flood burst forth with an unparalleled magnitude. The waters that were calm only moments before were cleft in twain like Moses parting the Red Sea. A tsunami in Indonesia wouldn't have rivaled the splash my payload made.
In one big blast, my body rid itself of the fetid stew that now assailed my nostrils. To make matters worse, my ass was now sopping wet; but there are no words to describe the relief I felt. Fortunately, there was only a small streak in the underwear that made for an easy cleanup.
My ass, on other hand, was another story. Normally it's a few wipes up and down the middle, but this was not "normally." I had to wipe each cheek individually and multiple times. Still, alas, my ordeal was over.
While it looked like a lecture hall, I learned later that Donaldson Brown was a conference hall and residential building. My apologies to those I may have odiferous offended.
I returned to the bookstore calm, cool, and collected to find Dave, bewildered at my disappearance. I told him it was the southern cooking as I silently cursed it, along with the rest of my South-of-Dixie experience.