"The Move"

Now, I know that there is a lot of embellishment that occurs in this
group 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.

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 wire cutters is having someone walk in on me while I
am taking a shit. 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 off 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/shat/puked.