I think back to the early nineties with an evil grin on my face. In those days I was single, in my mid-twenties, and sowing my wild oats in every way imaginable. I was less than "moral," mind you -- I wasn't totally evil, either, but back then I was the sort of guy who partook of the delights of the sex trade. My dear mother wouldn't have been pleased.

I never had sex with a prostitute. I had very little trouble finding women if I needed all-out sex. But I was horny most of the time, as men of that age typically are, and I got a shameful thrill from visiting "massage" parlors and getting lap dances at strip clubs from tweaked out, nubile women. Being young, my body was in a different form altogether -- today, at thirty-four, I have to consider everything I eat to avoid a round of the screamin' ‘rheas. I cannot stomach things the way I once could, and I have accepted this as a part of growing older. But at twenty-two I could eat anything and everything, and often did, with minimal consequences.

My partner in crime was Chris. Chris was also an expert in all things involving strippers and rub 'n tugs. It was he who, on that fateful spring night, decided we should go to the most skanky, disgusting strip club in Toronto. Whereas most clubs were clean and pricey, this one was dark, dirty, and full of pervert alley patrons. For those of you who don't grasp strip club language, pervert alley is the area of seats surrounding the stage itself. Typically they are occupied by creepy single men in their late 40's -- the kind who masturbate in the washroom and do all manner of other disgusting things. The remainder of the seats in most clubs are occupied by young guys in groups, businessmen, and others who wouldn't scare you on a dark city street. However, in this club, the whole place was pervert alley. There were weirdoes in every chair.

The strippers here were pretty awful, too. Most of them were so addicted to drugs that their noses were falling off. They had that sallow, spaced-out look to them that only hardcore drug use can cause. Some had needle marks up their arms. On a few occasions, when one decided to give me a detailed look at her equipment, I swear I could see little crabs building an empire. Awful.

And if you think the women were disgusting, you wouldn't have believed the men's room. It was like a sperm sample cup lying in a gutter on the streets of Calcutta. Upon our arrival, I had decided to relieve my bladder and made the mistake of entering the vile chamber. The walls were frosted with semen wallpaper... it almost looked like the surface of a glazed donut. The single toilet was caked with a biohazard I wouldn't even try to guess the composition of. Someone else must have shared my disgust for it, because there was a single turd in the urinal. I was young and daring, but this was too much even for me. I urinated in the sink and left, vowing to never enter that room again.

The one advantage of this place was that the beers were reasonable. Most clubs charged seven dollars a bottle, but this one served them for two. To Chris and I, the solution to being revolted by the place was to start drinking and view it through beer goggles. And drink we did. I was five beers along when my judgment finally gave out completely and I idiotically ordered a plate of chicken wings. I was drunk enough not to notice that they tasted funny.

By seven beers in, I thought it would be a good idea to drop twenty bucks and have a cracked-out stripper with crabs wriggle in my lap. I bought a lap dance from a young black woman who looked as if she had been smokin' hot as recently as a year ago, but had since succumbed to the temptations of everyone's favorite recreational drug: crack.

As she led me to a dark corner of the club, I felt an attack of intestinal cramps.

Not I-have-to-shit cramps, but holy-crap-what's-wrong-with-me cramps. Had I not been anesthetized by the beers, I probably would have passed out from the pain. But they were short lived, and I didn't want to show this woman my weaknesses, so I soldiered on. I sat down in the chair and she laid the requisite cloth over my lap (for her protection and mine). I felt the beads of sweat form on my neck.

She began her "dance" and wriggled all over me. The cramps came back. This time they were a low rumble. I could feel things moving and bubbling in my lower intestine. I was anything but sexually aroused. She then sat on me, her full weight pressing down on the George Foreman Grill that was my abdomen. I wanted out. I wanted to eject this agony as soon as possible.

But I also wanted my money's worth, and I couldn't bring myself to leave. Men… we are idiots.

I felt as though my bowels were full of epileptic garter snakes. I was so focused on my pain that I barely noticed the stripper dry-humping me. Each thrust of her hips sloshed the vile liquid within me.

The dance ended and I got up to run to the washroom. The beer had wiped out the memory of the glazed donut walls, but going through that door brought it all back and then some. Someone had added a splash of vomit to the decor. It was on the sink, the counter, and painted on the outside of the already vile toilet. Whomever did it must have eaten the wings, too. I backed out of there, pleased to find myself in the midst of a lull in my intestinal storm.

I went back to our table and suggested to Chris that we get out of there. He agreed. We went our separate ways outside the club. I lived only a short ways from there, so I was set to walk home. I began to walk when suddenly the cramps were back. Eight beers or not, this was agony. I doubled over, nauseous with the heat of boiling diarrhea. I began to walk faster, confident that if I could only make it the remaining two blocks, I could unload in the comfort of my own bathroom.

I lived across the street from a park. My apartment looked out over it. I decided that I could save time by cutting across it. About halfway across the park, I felt what I can only describe as The Anal Knock. (Imagine your anus is a door. Someone is locked in and they are knocking like mad to get out…) The inner walls of my anus were literally throbbing. As all experienced shitters know, this is the prelude to a turtlehead. The baby is coming, like it or not.

Had I been rational, I would have understood that crapping myself right then and there wouldn't have been so bad. It was two AM. I was fifty yards from my front door. Nobody was around. It was dark.

Alas, I refused to crap my pants and instead made a beeline for a strand of bushes in the corner of the park. Running only seemed to aggravate the angry turtle setting up shop in my underwear. I made it into the bushes, cutting myself all over from thorns and thistles. I dropped my pants a mere second before it all erupted.

Surprisingly, it wasn't liquishit, but a long, foamy snake that left me fast enough to cause friction with my anus. My abdomen appeared to implode as this serpent sprinted for the finish line. I looked up. Through the bushes I could see my front door, now not more than twenty-five yards away. I wouldn't have made it.

This is the closest I have ever been as an adult to shitting myself. I wiped up with a few leaves and finished the short journey home without so much as a fart to signify the intestinal torment of that night.