After discovering this website and reading some of the stories, I realized that I had a few I could share. The ones that came instantly to mind were my most recent experiences or events that were funny. As I began to think more and more, I came to the realization that a lot of my poop memories had become repressed over time -- because they were not a pleasant walk through a dewy country meadow. They were more like a trudge to the electric chair with Charlie Manson manning the switch. This is one such story.

A friend of mine returned home after a long summer spent working on a Kibbutz in Israel. Like a true friend, he brought back gifts for all his good buddies. For my other two friends, a waterpipe and a pair of sandals; for me, a bottle of overproof arak.

For those who don't know, arak is a stupefying liquor with a licorice flavor. It's clear like vodka, but all similarities end there. The bottle was printed in Arabic script, so it was up to my friend to give me the pertinent details. He said it was "hallucinogenic" if you drank a lot, and was over 160 proof. This all sounded good to me. He said you poured about a shot into a glass and mixed it with two-to-four parts water. It was meant to be sipped, not guzzled.

With this I proposed a toast and got out some glasses; but my gift-giving friend declined to imbibe. "I'd rather drink turpentine."

So I poured three very small shots and mixed them with water. Lo and behold: as soon as the water touched the arak, it turned this colorless clear liquor white, just like milk. Upon seeing this, my other two friends grew suspicious about what this stuff really was; but knowing my friend, I knew it was just gonna be the most toxifying stuff he could find. We raised our glasses to our returned friend and took sips. My two friends decided they didn't want to finish theirs; and I must admit, it was a real chore getting this stuff down. But I did. Within minutes I began to feel warm all over and quite content. Off we went to a bar to meet up with others and have a fun evening.

The arak sat for two years without any further samplings. Then one day it reared its ugly little head after a particularly heated exchange with my girlfriend from work. We'd had a fairly good relationship: pretty easygoing, lots of sex, lots of fun times, The night of our argument, we'd seen Mike Mandel, the hypnotist. Very funny. But the other couple we were with argued the whole time. They were not fun to be with. When we split for the evening, we discussed their fighting -- me taking my friend's side, she taking his girlfriend's. This led us to arguing. I got rather fed up and said the whole thing was stupid and that she was acting like a "fucking thirteen-year-old." This was like hitting a fly with a bazooka. She snapped. She laid into me about me being distant and partying too much with my friends and left in a fit of rage.

I was convinced that I'd just royally fucked things up. I really did enjoy the time we spent together, and I could see she was right. I was distant. Work was extremely demanding; to compensate, I had blowouts with the boys to let off steam. I could have done a lot more to let her know this.

Feeling like maybe I had just torched what had been a good relationship, I decided to drown my sorrows -- but the only thing available was the arak. I dove into it like a duck into water. Before I could consciously realize that I was drunk, the bottle was mostly empty, and I was soundly passed out on my couch.

I awoke about two in the afternoon, my head pounding, my eyes completely sealed with sleep, my tongue feeling like a carpet in a low-rent brothel, my guts churning, my bowels barking, and my phone ringing. I groped like a blind man for my phone. It was Tracy.

"Hi, it's me, I'm coming over. We need to TALK."

*click*

No sooner had I hung up the phone than I made the mad dash to the can, bashing into walls as I went. I dropped my ass and the shit whistled out. When I say "whistled," I mean whistled -- the arak had completely obliterated any solid matter in my system. Its fiery, acid-like composition caused my ass to clench up tighter than a Scotsman on Rodeo Drive, so that only a small aperture existed for this evacuation -- but the force behind it was like the pressure behind the Hoover dam. Imagine a garden hose on full above your toilet. Now place your thumb over the opening and try to close the opening completely. The splashback was immense, like molten steel hitting my ass, balls, dick, and thighs. And then the smell came.

I've had smelly dumps before, but this was ungodly. The air became heavier. Helium balloons couldn't rise through this oppressive odor. At this point I was close to puking. My legs were shaking, I was sweating profusely, I thought that I'd gone blind and that maybe I was gonna lose my girlfriend to boot. I sat for what seemed an eternity, my ass on fire, wiping wiping wiping, trying to open my eyes from their sleep-entombed crust, hoping these wrenching pains would leave, praying that I hadn't gone blind.

After twenty minutes I was able to get up. Unsteadily, I made my way to the sink, ran the water, cleaned up, and was able to get my eyes unglued. It looked like I'd had acid thrown in them. They were beet red. My eyelashes were covered in thick green sludge. A buzz from the intercom signaled Tracy's arrival.

I unlocked the door and sat on my couch, shaking and sweating. She made her grand entrance, took one look at me, and melted. Whatever fire she had come to unload dissolved the minute she saw me. "What happened to you?"

I gestured meekly at the nearly empty arak bottle on my coffee table. She could see that I was in distress, and said, "I'll get a cold washcloth."

She got about two steps from my washroom when I saw her figure stiffen. Buckingham Palace guards don't stand this erect. She looked back at me. All I could say was, "I didn't leave a mess."

She went in like a true patriot. Just then, I was racked by more spasms. I leapt up and darted to the can, but I felt the all-too-familiar squish that now resided in my ginch. Tracy exited before I got there. I closed the door and let whistle yet another unfamiliar turd call. Realizing my ginch was toast, I tossed them into the bathtub.

Every couple of minutes, from down the hall, Tracy would ask, "Are you okay?" And all I could do was say, "I don't know."

Because I didn't know.

This went on for a long time: pains, liquid fire, the smell, and now the shame of dumping in my drawers. Finally I was able to stand without fear of more incontinence, and I began running a shower to sweep my fecal stew out of sight. I cleaned up quickly, but the heat from the shower mixed with my ass fumes created a molten miasma. I began gagging. Dry heaves are never fun; dry arak shit-smell heaves after shitting yourself are worse.

I recovered, wrapped myself in a towel, and headed out of the torture chamber my washroom had become.

Tracy asked exactly what had happened. I gave her the details -- how I was sort of convinced we were over and that I had been drowning my sorrows. She was pretty sympathetic. We talked. She wasn't about to call it quits. She made weak tea and basically babied me through the day. I was able to ascertain that she didn't realize I'd shit myself, which gave me a hell of a lot more confidence (I'd rolled my soiled garments up in a ball and stuffed them under the sink). I resolved that I would become a better partner.

There are some things that are open to debate. Do older men with fast cars have small dicks? Is it true that women with big mouths never have tight pussies? I don't know. But there is one unshakeable truth that I learned from this: I will never drink Arak again.