Monday, October 30, 2006

Oh God Not Now!

We have all been there...

It's Sunday, which is, traditionally, the laziest day of the week. For many of us Sunday is spent drinking PBRs/High Lifes, watching football and consuming all manner of delicious greasy delights. The day comes to a hazy close with Sunday Night Football, a heavy buzz and a large plate of 'grande' nachos. Ah...football season, there is nothing quite like it. As we drift to sleep awash in the glory of another Sunday victory, the combination of crunchy tortilla chips, jalapenoes, spiced beef, corn, bacon, sour cream and beans mixes gently in the stomach lulling you to sleep.

You dream of more football and plates of hot wings.

7:55 a.m. Monday

As REO Speedwagon startles you from sleep, you realize that you've overslept a bit and, unless you hurry, you are going to be late for an important meeting at work.

So you rush to get yourself ready, grab a piece of bread for breakfast and head out the door. As you glance at your watch, relief washes over you and you realize you will be on time to the meeting.

Then something happens....
You are about halfway through your commute when a feeling overtakes you. You freeze in your tracks. You know this feeling, you have felt it before, and the result was never pleasant. A cold sweat forms on your forehead, you clench up, and your walk slows to a lurching gait. Wave after wave hits you like a Javanese tsunami and your mind clears of all thought except one.

WHERE IS THE NEAREST FUCKING TOILET!

It seems that the diarrhea fairy has paid you a visit this lovely morning. You now have a serious choice to make. You can (1) squeeze your buttcheeks together and tough it out the last 15-20 minutes of your morning commute or, (2) find the nearest toilet and end this misery before things get messy.

Option 1 is not for the faint of heart. If you are like most people, there is no emergency toilet on your el train or bus that allows for relief in these situations. If you choose to do this, you must also be prepared to 'potty walk' from your bus/train/parking lot into your building, up to your office, and finally to the restroom. Should you accept this challenge, you had better hope that the stalls are empty and the halls are clear because no 'how to poop at work' email will help you out with this one.

Option 2 is also risky. If you live in a big city, it may be hard to find a public bathroom. And if you do find one, a homeless person could be sleeping in it, or another person enchanted by the fairy may have beat you to it. Here, you also run the risk of frantically searching for too long and being late to work anyway. Best case scenario, you pull a 'Harry from Dumb and Dumber.' Worst case scenario, you don't find an open available bathroom and have to take option 1 anyway.


It doesn't just happen in the morning, there are other situations where this horrible confluence of greasy food will attack you: walking along innocently from your apartment to a friend's house, riding a train from Long Island to Penn Station, on a greyhound bus, having dinner with your girlfriends immediate family, in a bar with a one-man bathroom and a huge line on a busy Saturday night, in the middle of a two hour SCUBA dive.

In reality, there is no good solution to this problem (except maybe laying off the beer and chicken tenders on Sunday, but lets be realistic here). So if you are going to enjoy football season, you have to have nerves, or at least a sphincter, of steel.

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