Now, I know that there is a lot of embellishment that occurs when people
share an experience and I am aware that a small number of things are
perhaps sheer fabrication, but I have a story to tell that is the absolute
truth. Funniest damn thing that has ever happened to me.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steak House for
dinner. It was a Wednesday night which means that macaroni and beef was on
the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served. Wednesday
night is also kid's night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the Clown
wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastards.

(Take me away before this gets weird)

It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to
those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment. We went through
the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat hot bar then sat
down as far away from the front of the restaurant as possible in order to
keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I started my move to the hot bar.
Plate after plate of macaroni and beef were consumed that evening, I tell
you -- in all, four heaping plates of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were
shoved into my belly. I was sated. Perhaps a bit too much, however. I had
not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and such. By
the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in real
trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was having
trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was building. At
first, I thought it was only gas which could have been passed in batches
right at the table without to much concern. Unfortunately, that was not to
be.

After a minute or so it was clear that I was dealing with explosive
diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can make its way through your intestines
far faster than the food which spawned the grease to begin with, but I
digress... I got up from the table and made my way to the bathroom. Upon
entering, I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to
the right of the sinks, and two toilet stalls against the back wall. One of
them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the
handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good
shit, but in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing I hate
worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a pair of
diagonal wirecutters is having someone walk in on me while I am taking a
shit.

(Last chance to run)

I went to the normal stall. In retrospect, I probably should have gone to
the large, handicapped stall even though the door would not lock because
that bit of time lost in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too
long under the circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular
stall, the pressure on my ass was reaching Biblical proportions. I began
"The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to explain
"The Move." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any given
second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of
physiological events occur that can not be stopped under any circumstances.
There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the
toilet, beginning the body turn to position ones ass toward said toilet,
hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the pants while
beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid motion that, when
performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion of shit at the exact
same second that ones ass is properly placed on the toilet seat. Done
properly, it even assures that the choad is properly inserted into the
front rim of the toilet in the event that the piss stream lets loose at the
same time; it is truly a picture of coordination rivaling that of a skilled
ballet dancer.

I was about half-way into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor and
saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of those
little bastards attending kids night; it was mounded up in the corner so I
did not notice it when I had first walked into the stall. Normally, I would
not have been bothered by such a thing, but I had eaten so much and the
pressure upward was so intense, that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex.
And once that reflex started, combined with the intense pressure upward
caused by the bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started
coming up for a rematch.

What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of events are a bit
fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I can. In that moment of
impending projectile vomiting, my attention was diverted from the goings-on
at the other end. To put a freeze frame on the situation, I was half
crouched down to the toilet, pants pulled down to my knees, with a load of
vomit coming up my esophagus. Now, most of you know that vomiting takes
precedence over shit no matter what is about to come slamming out of your
ass. It is apparently an evolutionary thing since shitting will not kill
you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do not
aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to death. My
attention was thus diverted. At that very split second, my ass exploded in
what can only be described as a wake...you know, as in a newspaper headline
along the lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something
similar. In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an
enormous plug of shit the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of
greasy liquid came flying out of my ass. But remember, I was only half-way
down on the toilet at that moment. The shit wave was of such force and of
just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the toilet seat that it
ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the wall at an angle
of incidence equal to the angle at which it initially hit the toilet seat.
Then I sat down.

Recall that when that event occurred, I was already half-way to sitting
anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always
considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you get
beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you may be.
Needless to say, the shit wave, though of considerable force, was not so
sufficient so as to completely glance off the toilet seat and deposit
itself on the walls, unlike what you would see when hitting a puddle with a
high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at the puddle, the
puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a puddle. There was a
significant amount of shit remaining on about one-third of the seat rim
which I had now just collapsed upon. Now, back to the vomit...

While all the shitting was going on, the vomit was still on its way up. By
the time I had actually collapsed on the toilet, my mouth had filled up
with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed. OK, so
what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One bends over. So
I bent over. I was still sitting on the toilet, though. Therefore, bending
over resulted in me placing my head above my now slightly-opened legs,
positioned in between my knees and waist. Also directly above my pants
which were now pulled down to a point just midway between my knees and my
ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was wearing not just pants, but sweat
pants with elastic on the ankles. In one mighty push, some three pounds of
macaroni and beef, two or three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls
were deposited in my pants...on the inside...with no ready exit at the
bottom down by my feet.
In the next several seconds, there were a handful of farts, a couple of
turds, and the event ended, yet I was now sitting there with my pants full
of vomit, my back covered in shit that had bounced of the toilet, spattered
on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet, and still had
enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my shirt with
droplets of liquid shit. All while thick shit was spread all over my ass in
a ring curiously in the shape of a toilet seat. And there was no fucking
toilet paper. What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a
complete maniac to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually
asked if I was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I
was crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would
get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet paper.

When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but in no
way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that there was
no way I was going to explain what was happening in the stall, but that I
needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask my wife to come help
me. I told him where we were sitting and he left. At that point, I think he
was probably assuming that I had pissed just a bit in my pants or something
similarly benign. About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom
not knowing what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice.
I explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words)
that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had
experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I had
laid down a small turd or something and just needed to bring the car around
so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure she had no idea
that she was about to go across the street and purchase me new underwear,
new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time due to considerable
leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new sneakers. And she then
started to laugh herself since I was still laughing. She began to ask for
an explanation as to what had happened when I promised her that I would
tell her later, but that I
just needed to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few dry
ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he assured me
that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned. Without giving
him specific details, I explained that what was going on in that stall that
night was far in excess of what I would expect anyone to deal with, what
with most of the folks working at Ryan's making minimum wage of just
slightly above. At that moment, I think it dawned on him exactly the
gravity of the situation. Then that manager went so far above the call of
duty that I will be eternally grateful for his actions. He hooked up a
hose. Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and
tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make
clean up easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked up
the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning myself up
with the wet towels.

Just as I was finishing, my wife got back with the new clothes and passed
them into the stall, whereupon I stuffed the previously worn clothing into
the plastic bag that came from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I
finished cleaning myself off and carefully put on my new clothes, still
stuck in the stall since I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out
of the stall to get redressed in the event I happened to be standing there
naked and some little bastard kid walked in. At that point, I had only made
a mess; I had not yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.
When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up the
entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the center of
the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom. I had
intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done, but when I
walked out, three of the management staff were there to greet me with a
standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I thought I was going to
throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the car where my wife was now
waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at Ryan's
Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of any
restaurant in which I have eaten.

(BACK TO AL HOGUE)