...it all started on a dark and stormy night in the medical library, third floor. It was late, and I had just eaten a gyro from one of the street carts at the corner, without pre-med-ing on Zantac or following-up with Pepto Bismol, as I usually do. I was sitting down, digesting my meal comfortably, when all of a sudden I felt the lava flow of diarrhea begin to churn in my bowels. I tried to ignore it, but pretty soon I couldn't fight the urge. I had to get to the can and PRONTO.

When I arrived, after climbing two flights of stairs, I rushed into the closest stall. I noticed there was no toilet paper. In fact, sadly, there was no toilet paper ANYWHERE in any of the stalls. And the New York City Council apparently does not require toilet seat covers to be provided in public bathrooms. Couldn't I have just used paper towels, you ask? Well, let's just say I learned my lesson about trying to flush those from the Great November Flood in stall #2. I practically needed a raft and scuba gear to get out of the bathroom alive. But that's another story.

Needless to say, I had no choice but to attempt the infamous "squat" maneuver so abhorred by women. Since we don't have aiming equipment like our male counterparts (why, God, why?!), we have to have very good calves and glutes to be able to strategically hover over the toilet without making rear-end contact with the inevitably germy seat. Well, with #2, and with no toilet paper or cleaning supplies anywhere in sight, I knew going in that the operation was going to be risky. Once I dropped my drawers and let it fly, there was no turning back. It could go smoothly... or the situation could turn shitty, without warning... and with dire consequences!

The time was now. Without thinking, I readied myself for operation Turd Trajectory, said a quiet prayer, and commenced with the cargo drop. It went smoothly, almost too effortlessly, or so I thought -- there was no sound at all to be heard, no "plink" or "plunk" of the... uh... payload hitting the water in the toilet below.

"Wow," I thought, "So silent! Now that's what I call a splash-less wonder!" Wishful thinking. I turned around and, in horror, noticed that the toilet bowl was EMPTY. There was nothing in it. Sweat began to pour down the back of neck. Oh, no, it couldn't be... it wasn't...

I prayed that the shit had somehow become invisible.

But that was just a pipe (as in sewage) dream.

There was a cone-shaped mound right on the back of the toilet seat. I was MORTIFIED. How was I going to get it off? It was just too big. And I wasn't going to scoop it off, not even with a towel. I had no choice but to be a hit-and-run doo dropper, to get the heck out of Dodge -- or, in this case, the ladies bathroom, AKA the danger zone.

The next day I had practically forgotten about the incident (or was just suffering from PTSD -- Post-Turd Stress Disorder) and had blocked it out of my memory. That is, until I had to go again the next day and relieve myself, a la nature's orders. I happened to again visit THAT bathroom, and had the nerve to peek into THAT stall where the incident took place approximately twenty-four hours earlier. What I saw shocked me. Not only was my crap pile still on the back of the toilet seat, EXACTLY how I had left it (although not without regret) the night before, but there were now FOUR other separate, UNIQUE shit samples strategically placed around my original "target" pile.

They clearly were not of the same specimen donor, as their variety of colors and textures indicated (as determined from afar -- I didn't go near 'em); that is, unless the dropper had ate tons of different random foods and left the specimens at different times of the day, which is highly statistically unlikely.

Nope. These were from FOUR separate colons. Not only that, but there was even a little one ON THE TOILET HANDLE. I mean, like it wasn't enough to defile the lid -- they had to go and put it on the flushing apparatus, too.

I gasped in horror to find that there was also a rather shitty "spread" on the stall divider, as well as on the tiled wall behind the toilet.

It appears that medical/dental/nursing/physical therapy students, after letting months of anger and disgust build up due to the janitor's lack of replacing the toilet paper in the third floor bathroom, had decided to protest and consciously leave their... you know... contributions to the Manhattan sewer system on the lid. They must have thought that I did it on purpose, and they liked the idea, so they all chipped in. They probably laughed with sinister glee when they pictured the tired janitor swinging open the stall after a long day and seeing that there was a lot of shitty labor ahead of him/her. So it looks like I was somewhat of a fearless leader in this quest, unknowingly encouraging others to exercise their FTS (Freedom to Shit), to use their colons, rather than physical violence, to make their voices heard.

As the old saying goes: we can live for today and plan for tomorrow, but it's always what we leave BEHIND that will affect how we will move forward. Shit on, fellow Americans, shit on!