Road Block

Last weekend when my family and I took a trip to Washington, I couldn’t poop. I wasn’t constipated, but every rest-stop we went to was mutilated by damp, sticky floors and toilets overflowing with a mixture of feces and corn and tampons. I don’t know if this weekend was, like, National Release Your Shit Day, but every restroom’s line was backed up half-a-mile past the door and curved around sinks, diaper changing stations, and those cosmetic/feminine product vending machines that sometimes sell condoms or pregnancy tests.

Only two of the rest-stops had air-conditioning while the other eight suffocated the unfortunate Pee Dancers and In-Need-Of-Leg-Stretching individuals with a revolting reek of day-old piss, balled up toilet paper containing who-knows-what, and the brown “substance” that janitors were honest-to-god afraid to question (or even clean up) splattered across the stall walls like sloppy graffiti. You would think people would have more respect for public facilities! I mean, their ass cheeks are definitely not the first to have sat on those seats, and they are certainly not the last individuals liberating their lunch. But God, that stifling humid air plastered a “Hello, my name is DON’T YOU DARE BREATHE WHILE I WALK BY BECAUSE I STILL SMELL LIKE HIGHWAY 74 DEFICATION” sticker onto my breast, and despite my exhortative expression, people still chose to inhale my presence. However, a mixture of narrowed eyes, crinkled noses, and waving hands were soon discontinued due to the people’s lack of odor stamina.

To occupy myself in the absence of a Smartphone or People magazine, I sometimes imagined my bowel movements traveling to foreign lands, learning new languages, and getting a degree in poopology—the study of their own species’ function, growth, and evolution—rerolling their conversations in my head through sealed eyes and a tightened abdomen:

Are we really nothing more than insignificant substances sapped of alimentary value? We were once delicacies dripping in pigmentation, perfected behind kitchen doors. We were once art—momentous gastronomic meals folding flavor into our consumer’s taste buds, sketching spices and sauces into the bridge of their teeth, the cushions of their cheeks—

No! You see, Frederick, we cannot amount to the stars in the heavens, nor the oceans filling the sands. We are just as useless as broken buckets. Our lives—our existence—is frivolous. Look at us! Our casing repulses.

If noses and eyes could be torn from faces, they still wouldn’t recognize us as our old selves. We’d still have to be tortured in this pool, churning until our minds daze. But what if we survived the end? We could collect the seeds from fruits and grow sustenance!

Tell me. Our grandiose moment swooped right by us. Why couldn’t we embrace it?

We don’t have arms, but if we did, they wouldn’t be big enough to wrap around all we had accomplished. Relishing in glory is a reward, but to hold onto it would lead to impediment. We would never set new goals or better ourselves because we’d be too busy reliving the applause until it finally burst our arrogance. Then, we’d be trapped in an empty chasm with no motivation to move forward. We’d just be swimming in memories of past attainments.

Besides the lavatories’ appalling state, I have this unfortunate idiosyncrasy where I physically cannot poop with the lights on. As ridiculous as it sounds, I literally am forced to go through a multistep process before I can finally settle into a solitary contentment:

1. Inspect the bathroom to ensure its vacancy.

2. When clear, flick the light switch and run to the nearest stall in hopes of miraculously obtaining a speed faster than light, so the darkness won’t impede my ability to hunt for the toilet.

3. Blindly (and sanitarily) search for the toilet.

4. Sit down and pray no one enters until my protracted episode has ended.

5. Relieve myself on the Good Ole Bowl.

As a result of this fatal flaw, I had to resort to clenched cheeks (the bottom pair) and “casually” ignoring my abdominal agony rolling around like tumbleweeds, knotting my intestines to my liver to my pancreas to my kidneys to my spleen and to the growing agglomeration of stool loitering at the bottom of my back. I relentlessly consumed time, hoping it would pass sooner than later, but the discomfort lingered.

Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one hour. 48 minutes. 30 minutes. Are we almost there? 26 minutes. 21 minutes. 15 minutes. Damn it, I don’t know how much longer I can last. 13 minutes. 11 minutes. 8 minutes. PLEASE HURRY. 7 minutes. 6 minutes.

I still have crescent-shaped scars embedded in my palms due to clenched fists and nails performing an operation of Digging To Bone Because China Is Too Far, in an attempt to disregard the ache that had boiled my stomach. In the absence of an appropriate setting, last weekend had been the first time I soiled myself since I was three.