I can't think of another poop joke

This post is going to be about poop.

Dookie. Shit. Crap. Number 2. Scat. Feces. Like I said, poop.

If you don't like to read about poop - go read a different blog today. Might I suggest one that caters to pussies who can't accept that we, all of us, mankind, have to dump-out on a regular basis or die.

Oh no. I've just made my first hypocriticism of the day. Guess what? I'm a pussy who can't accept that we all have to shit or die. So now you know the real subject of this post. It's about one of my hangups.

("Um, excuse me Ms. Uumellmahaye, which of your posts has not been about your hangups?" asks that pesky little lone reader o' mine. Well, while I'm being schizophrenic, I might as well play name-that-personality. This one, the pesky lone reader, shall be christened "Polly Purefart" for her tendency to float stinky little self-censorship in my general direction.)

Anyway, back to me. My number one hang up about number two is that I cannot do my business in public. By "in public," I don't mean "on stage" or that I want to go "do it in the road." I just mean sitting in a sterile stall in a public restroom when other people, male or female, are milling about in the same said restroom.

Why do they call it a "rest"room? I am not going to nap in there.

I recently tried to explain to my friend of 10+ years (who is also my co-worker) why I can't do it. Here's the best I could produce: I am afraid that my efforts on this front have the potential to be best-case: noisy, worst-case: odorous. I imagine someone will look under the stall, see my shoes, somehow associate my shoes with me, know that I am a foul and gassy beast, and then, I don't know, maybe think bad thoughts about me.

My friend of 10+ years, let's just call her Z.I., said, "when I'm in the bathroom and I hear farting and smell shit, I never look under the stall to see the shoes of the pooper. I just think, 'i gotta get out of here.'"

Z.I. is a wise, some would say "sage," woman. She is practical and earthy. I have always envied her these traits.

Reading over my shoulder, my husband informs me that when he hears or smells the evidence of a gaseous shit-bag in a public John, he feels challenged to one-up-man-shit as a form of squatter's rights. If he can somehow out-doo the pooer, he will get the person to turn tail and run so that he can have the can to himself.

This is evidence of a personality so well-endowed with Id that I am dumbstruck.

Unfortunately, I am neither logical nor hegemonic about my pooping. And today, I caught a whiff of just how stupid I am.

Before I tell you, let me first thank you for making it this far. I apologize for the scatalogical nature of this post. I feel like that fly character in Meet the Feebles right now. Even typing about this subject makes me feel dirty.

So. Today.

Background: If you have paid any attention to my posts thus far, you know that I have a few food allergies/intolerances. (Yes. That's me. If I had to find my personality in pop-culture, I would say I am a cross between Clementine from Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Joyce from American Splendor.) Anyway, I have had amazing will-power as of late in the dairy-department. Today I picked up a fast-food lunch from Chipotle without caving in to the sour-cream and cheese that I love like crack-cocaine but know is rotting my insides like an insidious cancer.

30 minutes after eating my burrito-bowl (which just sounds like the name of a food from Idiocracy, doesn't it?), nature, that rabid telemarketer, began to call. I was talking to a coworker about how to deploy our on-line help system and despite the bone-chilling boringness of that subject, he seemed like he might never let me end the chat. My stomach roiled and rumbled and I started to bloat like a highland-bagpipe in the hands of my kilt-wearing red-headed Scot ancestors. I tried to end the conversation by turning my body sideways and stepping away, but then he asked an open-ended question (deft ploy) and I was forced to retreat. At one point, oddly enough, I had to press ham to prevent an expulsion and while I am 99.99 % sure I was successful, I smelled evidence of raspberries. Is it possible said co-worker was also stifling himself, and if so, what horrible synchronicity!

Finally, I was able to tear myself away without being rude. I stepped to my cubicle to grab my access card exactly as Z.I. ran to her cube and informed me that she had to go to the bathroom.

Were we all caught in the eye of a shit-storm? Was it some sort of post-lunch phenomenon?

Anyway, I felt caught between a rock and a hard-place. Should I follow her to the bathroom, inform her honestly of my intentions, laugh it off and then go for it? In a fantasy world, yes. (Well, actually, in my fantasy world, there isn't a biological need to shit. Or shave. Or pop zits. The rest of the physical annoyances associated with human life don't bother me, but I could lose those three.) In this world, I gave her a head start, hoping she had to pee, and then quickly walked to the lavatory, accompanied by an emerging turtle.

I made my way for the furthest stall. It's the handicapped one, and in my book, it is "door #2" or "the brown room." I think everyone should shit there. Not because of some animus toward the physically challenged, but because it is farthest away from the door, thus affording the most privacy and lebensraum.

Z.I. was stalling. There was a lot of rustling of clothes, like she'd worn some sort of special underthings that required origami-like precision to refashion. I started to sweat. Despite the fact that I have known this woman since the mid-nineties, have laughed and cried with her, attended both of her weddings, and have worked with her more times than either one of us can count, I could NOT bear the thought that she would hear me poop/see my shoes/think ill of me.
I considered just saying "hey, it's me, and you might want to get out of here soon" or "it's me. Don't look at my shoes" and then singing the National Anthem with my intestines. But then I thought, "what if it isn't Z.I.? What if it's a TOTAL STRANGER or worse yet, an ACQUAINTANCE?" So, I zipped it, inhaled, and prayed that she would skip the handwashing, despite all the OCD that would cause me later, so that I could have a moment alone with my bodily functions.

She flushed. I tried to eek out a prologue under cover of the flushing noise but I was too tightly wound to relax. She washed her hands (good girl!), maybe even lathering/lingering longer than normal. Finally, I heard the door and let go.

Ahhhh. Total silence. And, honestly, I think my shit smelled like roses ("like Guns and Roses" the husband would say.)

As I completed my affairs, someone else walked in and I worried that they would hear the sound of the toilet paper roll and rip, put 2 and 2 together and figure out that the number of wipes required meant poop and would think ill of me. But this worry was fleeting, and I flushed/washed/and high-tailed it outta there before my anyone could have fingered me.

So, that's it. If you made it this far, you are a real gem. I think this is some sort of self-sabotage because over the last two days, two friends have told me they have been reading my posts (one even said she liked them) and so maybe I'm testing the limits of your patience. Whatevs. It's a big step toward normalcy for me to write in such a ribald manner, despite my non-anonymity, and so I feel like toasting.

So, here's mud in your eye!