Times I Shat My Pants #8

Migratory Panty Patterns

There was a time when I believed I could eat raw meat. “Chicken’s chicken,” I would say, pawing in a half-cooked nugget or two. And I could eat raw meat, we all can eat raw meat, but we can all eat anthrax, too. There are consequences.

Pretend-enjoying a pizza in my new girlfriend’s flat, my theory was disintegrating into a well-deserved case of food poisoning. We were a long way off poo-mentioning intimacy yet, and her Milan apartment was on the cosy side of cramped. Every spatter would let her in on the revolting storage tank for excretions, I truly am.

Mid-sentence I stood up and begged her to leave. She laughed and went out for a fag, while I disembowelled. 

In the hours to come, the attacks came thin and fast. There was no protecting her from my ugly truth. In the rare let-ups in the pellet-fire, I could hear her copying my disgraced groans, and realised, again, how fucking great she is.

That night I awoke a relationship-saving clench away from shitting all over myself, herself and, probably, us. Half asleep, the other half shitting, I straddled over my sleeping girlfriend. Thinking I was initiating some small hours love-making, she mumbled some drowsy consent in Italian. How wrong she was, if anything I made war that fateful morning.

The next day, I had a 13-hour cheapskate’s odyssey back home to Oxford, England. I quadrupled-dropped some over-the-counter pills, pocketed some back-up panties and kissed my still-girlfriend goodbye.

My stomach was can-I-speak-to-a-manager upset, and made its grievances known at every stage. In flight, I pressed my closed eyes into the seat in front and wondered if I pooped myself above international waters, which nation would claim jurisdiction of the clean-up.

On the Megabus home, my gastric omens travelled the length of the bus, jolting a lady from her slumber more than once. Thankfully, those reserve pants never did get the call-up.

Arriving home was oh-so sweet. I found my childhood bedroom had been fuchsia-ed right up. My parents were chuffed to bits with their new guest room, complete with all the trimmings of a budget hotel. In their house of homely disorder, it looked how other people’s houses looked. Facedown in fresh pillow, I drifted off.

My waking thought was “Shit,” and so were the next few. A gust of poop spritzed upwards, like vapour from a whale's spout. “Shit, shit...” The aftermath had the vibe of a soft-core scat porn set. “…shit, shit, shit…”

Despite shitting on their dreams of domestic averageness, my mum and dad were pleased to see their, legally, adult son. Until, the next morning when I awoke again with crap crying freedom. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?

I’m well aware this second geyser of poop isn’t very narratively neat, but, I’m sorry, my shit will not be contained by your confined definition of narrative. My parents were also pretty miffed by the untidyness this poop’s arc caused.

The Quibblers - that pedantic subset of the Haters - will say I shit the bed, not my pants. To all you triflin’ Scribble-Quibblers out there, both bases were shat evenly. My underwear was just as frayed as my relationship with my parents on those tricky mornings. Mum was still sympathetic, but my dad’s attitude was more ‘You shat your bed, now lie in it’, which I completely get.

Oh, but there’s nothing quite like the convenience of crapping yourself in your family home, is there? Arguably more convenient than the toilet.