The other night here in the Northeast, we had a wicked storm. Rain, snow, and fifty-five-MPH wind gusts. As fate would have it, I lost power at 7:30 PM. Knowing the way the power company works (like snails), I expected that it would be at least the following morning before power would be restored. Normally I can deal with the lack of power, but the boiler was off, along with the water, and the temperature was falling.

So I could tough out a cold night in the dark, or I could crash on a friends couch. Not even a question: I was outta here.

I called a friend the next town over. No luck -- he was in the dark as well. Then I thought of another local friend who has a woodstove. No answer. I was out of options. I had to check into a motel. The closest one with power was twenty miles away. I hopped in the car and drove through the pitch-black mountains to the Quality Inn.

It was your average motel. Nothing fancy. The desk clerk wanted one hundred dollars. I beat him down to eighty-five. Still a rip-off.

As luck would have it, there was a steakhouse joint right next door. Initially, I thought twice about it. You see, I have recently been diagnosed with IBS and hadn't taken a dump in about five days; so the last thing my colon needed was an indigestible eight-ounce sirloin steak trying to punch out of my already feces-laden gut. But I was starved and hankering for some meat.

A prime rib, onion rings and salad bar later, and I was stuffed. I retired back to my room.

My ritual when I am in constipation mode (I vacillate between the two extremes) is three helpings of Benafiber a day, along with a glass of Miralax and four stool-softener pills. This would cause any normal human to shoot around the room as if they had a jetpack on. Not me. Five days of this had brought only a series of hot, sharp, foul-smelling farts. After dosing (once again) that night, I went to sleep.

It was a rough night's sleep, with lots of nightmares. I awoke at about eight AM to that familiar crampy, gassy feeling. I knew it wouldn't be long and thanked God that check-out wasn't until noon. When I get like this it usually requires multiple trips to the bathroom until I have completely emptied out.

So I ran to the john ready to birth a brown-headed stepchild. What came out was a never-ending, neatly coiled pile of soft yellow shit. (It turns out my step child was a blond!) If someone had dangled me above a giant ice cream cone and squeezed my mid-section, I would have created a foul Mr. Softee cone straight out of Dante's Inferno. Satisfied with my creation, I got up and wiped my ass with that horribly rough dump role that most motels use.

The first wipe was rancid and covered with more shit then I thought possible. The second wipe? Just as bad. The third? Take a guess. It went on and on. My asshole had turned into some kind of nightmarish ballpoint pen.

Knowing that too much dump roll would clog the toilet, I flushed to make room. Nothing. No movement at all. It wasn't a question of overflowing the bowl -- you would need water to move for that accomplishment.

I panicked. I knew I wasn't close to being done. I started to throw the shit rags in the small garbage can in the bathroom.

After cleaning up after round one, I went back to the bedroom to contemplate my next move. I could call the front desk and tell them of the problem, but that would only lead to a couple of possibilities:

A) Major embarrassment.
B) A wait for someone to come and fix the problem. Even more embarrassing.
C) An embarrassing request for a key to another room for me to sully.

So I opted for D) Do nothing. Keep on shitting and tell them at checkout.

I made about three more encores to the bathroom before I was finally finished. The bowl was love-loaded by the time I was done, and the small trashcan was filled with my shit rags.

Now, I am not totally heartless. I really did feel bad about the situation. I couldn't stop thinking about the poor cleaning woman whose day I was going to ruin. All I could think about was her opening the lid of the bowl and letting out a blood-curdling, "AY, DIOS MIO!!" and following it with a healthy vomiting session.

At the same time, my evil side found it freaking hilarious.

So I tied up my bundle of shitrags so at least she wouldn't have to inhale my vapors and wrote her a note, which I placed on the toilet lid. Once again my evil side took over, and I had to add a touch of humor to my note. I knew she probably wouldn't get the reference but I did it anyway:

"Beware. Abandon hope all ye who enter here. The toilet wouldn't flush. Sorry. Lo siento." Next to the note, I left a $5 dollar bill. It was the least I could do.

I will never know what happened. But they probably held a Sanataria ritual over the bowl to exorcise the evil spirits of my rotted colon.