When I was a small child, I was a Shameful Shitter of the highest order. I simply hated to take a shit. I would actually hold it in until I couldn't hold it any more (can you say "anal retentive"?) While I don't remember much of my childhood, I do remember that aspect, its impact on others, and one very strange incident with an old man outside a restaurant.

I don't believe my mother actually knew how to deal with my shitting issues. I think I really hated to get dirty. I knew that dry paper just didn't work to actually "clean" you and I didn't want to have skidmarks in my white briefs. So, unless it was absolutely necessary, I didn't shit.

When I was forced to take a shit, there was the cleaning problem. Until somewhere, sometime, someone handed me a wet washcloth and I cleaned my ass with it. Yep, I generated a really shitty, smelly washcloth each time I took a shit. I vaguely remember knowing this wasn't right and actually hiding a nasty cloth behind the toilet once.

I remember one day realizing that there was water in the bowl beneath me and that if I dry-wiped and got as clean as I could and then flushed the offending matter away, I was left with a bowl of clean water, which I could use to wet the toilet tissue. What a relief! No more shame and shitty washcloths! From that point on, I have, to this day, used the dry/wet wipe method, and can proudly say that I NEVER had to deal with skidmarks in my underwear. My wife has never seen skidmarks in my shorts. Gone was my fear of shitting!

But, before that glorious moment, there was one incident that I remember to this day.

I know I must have been six or seven at the time because I was dressed for school. My mother worked as a waitress in a small diner in our small town. I often ate at the diner early before being taken to school. This ominous morning, I had my breakfast and then started feeling the urge to shit. I was away from home and didn't have any way of cleaning myself as this was before the dry/wet revelation I described above. I was in a panic because this shit seemed much different than normal. There was a lot of pressure.

I remember asking my mother to take me home and must have gotten some sort of brush-off, which was normal, as I was a horrible kid. I went outside and found myself with the herculean task of trying to hold it in. I wasn't winning the battle, and I knew it.

To make matters worse, there was an old man -- he must have been at least seventy-five -- who was trying to talk to me. I was standing with my back to the side of the restaurant facing the little service station next door. What with the heat, the pressure, and having to try to talk to an old man, I lost the battle and filled my shorts with some of the foulest, runniest shit known to me at the time. So much so that shit started oozing out of my briefs and down my leg, out the leg of my little boy shorts.

I was mortified, but still talking to the old man with shit running down my leg.

He knew something was wrong but must have been so old that he didn't know exactly what it was. He did notice the shit of my leg after a while, but must not have figured out what it was or smelled it because the next thing I knew, he was offering me his handkerchief to wipe my leg.

At this point my child brain must have overloaded with the shame and the guilt of having shat myself in front of someone I probably knew in a public place. I am pretty sure that I didn't accept the offer of the handkerchief, but I remember nothing else about the day. I do know that I can't remember any other incident of this sort in my childhood.

Thankfully, I must have discovered the dry/wet method soon after this incident. I suspect that my mother beat the crap out of me (no pun intended), which actually forced the discovery. It wasn't the last time I shat myself, but it was the last time I did it because I was purposefully holding it in.

I am now very much a Shameless Shitter. I can go anywhere there is a normal toilet and make as much noise and smell as necessary. Although port-a-lets are a different story.