I am a youth minister by profession, and most of the time it's a pretty sweet gig. I've got a cushy office, get paid a decent salary, and work with nice people; I can't complain. But my Kumbaya-singing world came crashing down on one particular Sunday when a demon from hell decided to possess my butt.
Let me start this off by saying that I will eat any food at any time of day. Twenty-four-hour taco stands are my specialty. There are hundreds of these places around my city and I have frequented most of them. I really could care less if it's cat meat or not -- anyone who can put together a three-pound burrito for thirteen cents at 3:30 AM is O.K. by me. On this Sunday morning, there were a few things I still needed to do before youth group that evening. On my way in to the office I decided to stop and pick up a machaca burrito. Little did I know that contained within this seemingly harmless flour tortilla was the very gateway to the netherworld.
I strolled into the office mid-morning, ready to hunker down and fill my tum-tum with a fiesta of goodness. I said the obligatory hellos to the pack of geriatric money counters tallying the collection from the morning Masses and went into my office. I barely heard them when they mentioned to me that the water in the office had been shut off. This was a piece of selective hearing that would come back to bite me.
By this time I was really hungry. I was on that burrito like R. Kelly on a teenager. Now, I'm usually a fast eater, but I finished this Mexican meat parcel in record time. And it didn't take long for me to realize that something had gone terribly wrong.
It started out feeling like a hamster was running around on a wheel in my stomach. Soon, though, there was a full-blown typhoon raging in my gut. I purged some of the pressure by letting loose a fart that smelled bad enough for me to try to cover it up with my aromatherapy spray. I knew that my efforts were going to be in vain, though; and I knew that there would be a reckoning. I felt like my butt was going to explode.
The problem was that the bathroom was right next to where those freaking fossils count the money. I admit it: I am a Shameful Shitter. But, as has been so often mentioned on this site, when faced with the prospect of shitting one's pants, shame is a luxury that one can no longer afford. I made a beeline straight for the bathroom. I zoomed right by the Civil War veterans, slammed the door, dropped trou, and went to town. I had made it -- or so I thought.
Just as I was finishing up, one of the fogies reminded me that the water in the building had been turned off. I guess that there was some kind of leak or something.
"I know," I replied. It was the best I could come up with.
Now, anyone who has been in this type of situation before knows that when the water is off, there is still a tank full of salvation. You still have one flush. I looked at the damage in the bowl. There wasn't much water in the down there (which should have tipped me off), but it still looked like a one-flusher.
"Not bad at all," I thought to myself. "One flush should be able to handle it, no problem."
I pulled down on the handle -- nothing but a little gurgle. I tried it again -- same result. Then I realized what happened. One of those frigging money counters living on borrowed time had already flushed the toilet. They stole my damn flush. I wanted to go out there and start breaking hips and badmouthing FDR until the one who did it 'fessed up; but then better judgment prevailed, and I devised a plan to get rid of the poo in the toilet.
Don't ask me why, but my pastor recently put a very large fish tank in the office bathroom. I don't know if he's having constipation problems and the little fishies relax him or what, but this thing is gargantuan.
Also in the office bathroom is a vase with some fake flowers in it.
I started bailing water out of the aquarium into the toilet tank. By the time I had what I considered to be the minimum amount for a decent flush you could tell that water was missing from the aquarium, but the fish certainly weren't in danger.
What happened next is what has scarred me for life. As the toilet was flushing, one of the maintenance men, having fixed the problem, turned the water back on. The air in the pipe mixed with the flushing action in progress caused a mini water-crap-missile to hit me right in the face. My reaction was immediate. I barfed right in the toilet. I mean a massive, wake-the-dead barf. There was stuff in there I hadn't seen in years.
Luckily the water was back on, and there wasn't much clean-up to do anyway. I scrubbed my face for like five minutes, flushed the barf, and replaced the water in the fish tank. I felt like I had been in there for centuries. As I walked out of the bathroom and back to my office, one of the ancient ones asked me what I was doing in there.
I just blurted out, "Cleaning the fish tank... the water's back on," and I continued dejectedly to my office. I am still trying to figure out which one stole my flush.