Poo Story
This post has absolutely nothing worthy to contribute to society, except to say look proudly at your poo and see your GP if you’re ever concerned. Until such time, marvel over what you’ve created and if you’re lucky, your bowels may even grant you a story to amuse colleagues and friends. Like the time I sharted myself waiting for the bus.
I’m serious: that’s what this post is about, so now’s your chance to retreat from the browser with a disgusted shake of the head if that’s not your tub of jolly. If you’re staying around, this post is dedicated to @hrasvelgveritas who knows the power of talking and laughing about poo.
I’d like to say this story happened way back in the dusky past after a major case of gastro, but no. It was about a month ago and I was the picture of health. In fact, I’d just donated plasma the previous afternoon. Each pre-donation interview, I truthfully declare no side effects from last time. Well, kind of truthfully, because I have noticed for a while that replacing around 700ml of plasma for saline has a bit of laxative effect the following day.
On this particular Saturday morning in May, I was on the way to meet my son and his grandparents at the aquatic centre for his swimming lesson following a sleepover. I was also nursing a bit of a hangover (they’ve never specifically told me not to drink SA Shiraz when they’ve reminded me to keep my fluids up) and decided to treat myself to breakfast at the 24-hour Pancake Kitchen off Hindley Street because I’m a classy dame when I’m child-free. I strolled around to the bus stop in Currie Street in good time and took a nice seat in the sunshine. It was shaping up to be the perfect day. All that was needed now was a nice little pressure-reducing fart.
It was not the breezy shhhww I’d expected.
It took a moment to recognise what had just happened. Images flashed before my mind of swollen rivers, the spreading warmth from an open fire on a cool night, a soft serve ice cream tap opening. And then my dreamy eyes and serene smile snapped into B-grade horror movie shock. There was the truth laid out behind me: I had sharted my pants in public. The only other time this had happened to me outside of infancy was leaving the house for my first day back at work after a bout of gastro. This time, I couldn’t do an about-face and jump in the bathroom. This time, I had no choice but to stand up, tie my jacket around my waist and begin the 15 minute walk home with my shame squelshing between my arse cheeks. It occurred to me afterwards that I could have just found a public toilet and inspected the damage, but I’d already been blessed with practically deserted streets and didn’t want to break the spell of anonymity, as if the world had suddenly turned into some Invasion of the Body Snatchers apocalypse but with poo pants instead of pod people. Just keep walking, ignore as best I could the itch that was setting in with each step, and get the fuck home.
As it was, I got off pretty lightly. It was curiously inoffensive and I could have managed with an accessible toilet cubicle and a few handfuls of wet toilet paper. But that’s the sort of experience you need to ritually cleanse yourself of, and reflect on the brief but fearful moment when the deepest, most carnal part of my mind entertained the knowledge of how good it it would feel to just bear down and finish the job, right there in downtown Adelaide in my skinny jeans. And how the rest of my mind waited in horror to see if that was the moment I would spontaneously throw up my arms up and irretrievably flip the crazy lady switch. (It’s the same feeling I sometimes get heading into Storytime, wondering if this is the day I discover I have the filthiest-mouthed Tourette Syndrome in neurological history.) No, it was all okay and I’d escaped with my dignity and a vow never to tell a soul.
Happy movements, everyone.