Times I Shat My Pants #1

A Shit in a Million

I took a week off for my birthday, so I’m posting some old shit from before substack

At some stage in our development we all shit ourselves. Wastefully, most of you squares fall out of practice when your newborn incontinence privileges are revoked, not taking the craft back up until you're too close to death to truly appreciate it.

From the shitty reception my scatological anecdotes tend to receive in polite company, I’ve come to realise that I’ve shit myself more than your average bear. I’m working on a theory that everyone has discoloured their unmentionables at least once during adulthood, they just don't dare admit it. You know who you are. You just bundled up that grubby little memory with your soiled undies and disposed of it. In the interest of pioneering an openness on the subject, I’m quite happy to publicly air my dirty laundry and recycle it for your reading pleasure.

It will serve as a memoir of those plops destined to escape the standard fate of their nameless brothers. A testament to those happy, lucky few that dared to dream and lived to experience the delicate embrace of my underwear.

If you’re put off by the slightly anti-climatic nature of each chapter (SPOILER ALERT: shit hits the pants,) don’t worry—each combine to form a larger, more meaningful story arc. A true coming-of-age story of intestinal insubordination and colonic revolt. A tale of bowels who refused to bow down to societal pressure or the will of their master.

A Shit in a Million

I must have been 13 or so, and a relative novice in the undie-sullying game. My little brother and I were strolling home from school, chatting away, blissfully unaware of the punishing trial being plotted by my colon.

As we began to climb the steep incline that led to our family home, my gut began to shift slowly and uncomfortably like a drunk driver stirring in a drunk tank.

I’ve got this covered, I remember thinking. I was young, arrogant, headstrong. In as few as four careless strides, things went from manageable to bad to worse. It was coming.

My face turned as white as a squash enthusiast. I deployed preventative tensing measures, but the dark forces were mounting—the outer chamber had been breached. I masked my discomfort as best I could, but close as we are, Jake saw a change in me. He knew something was up. I couldn’t let on, knowing he’d have no sympathy.

It peeked out. One inadvertent clench of my butt cheeks, and I was done for. There was still a good 200 feet until we reached home. Like a weary gunslinger, I waddled bravely on. I couldn’t keep up the front and risked sharing my burden with Jake. Not really appreciating the severity of the situation, he laughed and began shadowboxing inches from my troubled gut. A flinch triggered an involuntary squeeze. The turtle was beheaded. I’d shit my pants.

As I was wearing those old-school baggy grandpa boxers, there was no safety net. I tried to play it off. “I feel all right actually,” I mumbled, a little too chirpily, taking off at a suspicious pace. I felt it bounce and trail stodgily down my hamstring like a slug in the breeze. Then with a stealthy flick of my school pants, my poop was liberated. I didn’t look back.

The sounds of my brother’s joy alerted me that I’d been rumbled. Beaming complacently up at me was a perfectly spherical, meatball-sized ball of phosphorus orange dung. Oh, how it glowed. I might have gotten away with it, if I hadn’t birthed a scaled-down replica of the sun.

Eventually, the laughter died, and we stood over my creation in silent awe.

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