Explosive

Not long that long ago, when I worked at a little brewpub, one of my tasks at the end of the night was to clean the restroom. There was only one. It was unisex. There was a urinal, but it was out of service more than it was in. This wasn’t in Germany. It wasn’t a drink-until-you-vomit-and-the-next-one’s-on-us beerhall like the Hoffbräu Haus. There was no need for a speibecken. Clean up was usually pretty easy. On a normal night, the odd bloody tampon or pad was as bad as it got. That’s a normal night. One extra-special night the toilet tank was spattered with a brown plaster. My thought wasn’t that I was the one who had to clean that mess up. I was wondering how a feat like that was even possible.

I know. Right now you’re probably yelling “Explosive diarrhea! Explosive diarrhea!” at your computer screen or phone like you would shout a letter at a clueless contestant on Wheel of Fortune. Explosive diarrhea was going through my mind, too, as it so often does. But the angles and trajectory were all wrong. Explosive diarrhea, at least in my experience, ends up in the toilet, or in your pants. Not on the wall. It may make a mess of the toilet bowl or your underwear, or both, but at least they’re on the playing field.

Another possibility was that one of our customers that night was the creative type and saw the tank as a blank canvass and a perfect spot for some finger painting. “Do people really do stuff like that?” I wondered. The answer, of course, is yes, people do stuff like that. Case in point. After watching a basketball game at my high school, I put my foot on the bumper of my little Toyota pickup to tie my shoe and discovered someone, no doubt from the opposing school, had dropped a log onto the bumper so large you could feel the heat rising off it. The guy’s aim and placement was pretty good, so good that I suspected he’d had a lot of practice. That it was a dark, moonless winter night made it all the more impressive. A guy this good didn’t need to use his hands to put it where he wanted. This guy was a pro. The guy who soiled the toilet tank at the brewpub was an amateur who just got lucky.

For my whole life I’ve struggled with obsessive thoughts, but I had to let this one go unanswered. Without out security cam video, which is illegal in a bathroom, it would remain a mystery.

At least, for a few years.

If you were one of the readers shouting “Explosive diarrhea! Explosive diarrhea!”, congratulations. You were right. I have irrefutable proof.

It was a beautiful autumn morning and I had just dropped off my daughter at school. I needed some things from town and headed to the hardware store not far from the school. Halfway there, my innards started rumbling and cramping. Things picked up quickly. The pains came in stabbing bursts, like a keychain-size Swiss Army knife stumbling through my colon, looking for the exit. At first, I was just a little worried I wouldn’t make it. The hardware store had a public restroom and I was almost there. By the time I got out of my car I was absolutely terrified. If I had to hold the door for an elderly woman, there was a good chance I wouldn’t make it. If there was someone in the bathroom already, I was screwed, and the other customers would be sprinting out the door. I would never be allowed in that store again. I should have just climbed into the backseat of my car and done it on a floor mat. They were rubber and designed to be hosed off in  situations just like this. But no, I’ve never been able to back down from a challenge, no matter what the odds.

No elderly women. No one in the bathroom. I prayed I wouldn’t struggle with a button on my pants or the buckle on my belt. There was no room for error. I gave it my best effort, an effort my parents could be proud of.

I was in the stall. Door closed. Button and belt conquered. As I pulled down my pants I also had to pull up the shirttails on the extra long shirt I was wearing. It was the shirt that did me in. Had the shirt been shorter it would have held itself out of the way. To give the shirttails a place to rest on my hips as I sat down, I tilted my ass from a downward direction to an upward one. I didn’t have a chance to readjust.

Here’s where the explosive part comes into play. The concussive boom shook the stall. I painted a stripe on the wall that went from the back of the seat to within one inch of the ceiling. Had the hem of my shirt not interfered with the trajectory, it would have made it all the way up for sure. For the record, this is not hyperbole. It’s not braggadocio. I don’t have photographic proof, but even if no one believes me, I know what I did. What I’m capable of.

The immediate feeling of relief was soon replaced by absolute wonder. The wonder of the human body. Of its digestive system. The anatomical teamwork needed to supercharge peristalsis to such a level. The wonder of knowing something I had eaten wanted out of me so badly that it expelled itself with such violence.

Unlike the guy at the brewpub, when I spray my shit on the wall, I clean it up. I’d been in this bathroom many times and I knew it was also where they kept the cleaning supplies they used to clean the store, including the very stall I had defiled. There was a variety of supplies to choose from, to experiment with. There was even a little step ladder that helped me reach the high water mark. Having the right tools for the job made cleaning up an absolute joy. I would venture to say that after all that I did to contaminate the place, I left it cleaner than I found it. That’s just the way I was brought up.