Overflowing Toilet

(I do not own this image, I found it here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/166562065/dont-touch-my-balls-white-baby-onesie)

                I am a woman who really enjoys poop jokes; I can’t explain it. Perhaps my taste for graceless jokes comes from my complete lack of it. Shocking as it may seem ESPECIALLY for those of you who know me very well, I have had some embarrassing moments in the restroom. I have been frightened into wetting my pants (and driven home with my coat tied around my waist to change), since having my daughter I often lose a bit of my bladder’s contents when I sneeze (not every time, enough with the suspicious stares), I can’t even count the times I have farted in a store just to have someone walk around the corner into the stink cloud moments later, and I have of course clogged my fair share of toilets. None of these incidents even come close to the horror that befell me in the fall of 2009, a permanent black mark in my past.

                I was spending the weekend at a new girlfriend’s house and was anxious to make a good impression. This chick was the judgmental type and the type to never let you ever live anything even remotely embarrassing down. For example, I was once playing Strip P’Diddle with her and a few other friends two years later. I am known not only for my frequent flatulence but also for my slow reflexes, an unfortunate trait in the game of P’Diddle. For those of you who have never played, it is a simple car game. Every time you see someone with a missing headlight or taillight or those ridiculously bright white headlights, you shout P’DIDDLE and touch the ceiling of the car. The last poor fool to carry this out has to remove an article of clothing. (I have been very exposed while playing P’Diddle.) So there I was, already topless and forced to remove my pants just as we rolled through the McDonald’s drive-thru. Sadly, the embarrassing part was that it was laundry day and I was wearing some monstrous granny panties. I never lived that one down; in fact, one of the girls I was with went out and bought me three thongs as a joke later on. (It was humiliating, but, hey, I will take the free undies!)

                Returning to my first weekend at Judgmental Girl’s house, as you may know, normal people don’t go an entire weekend without pooping and teenagers are really shy about their bowel movements. (Let me save you some trouble, young ones, no one gives a shit. Literally. Everyone drops a deuce now and again. Even if it is smelly, you aren’t really getting judged as much as you think you are. In fact, I judge you more for holding it. Honestly, are you a sadist or just dumb? POOP!) I swear, I held it as long as I could (by which I mean probably 18 hours after arriving. I know, right? JUST GO, FOOL!) We were outside lounging around the backyard and talking smack about everyone we knew when I could hold it no longer. Assuring her I would be right back, I bravely entered the house and headed for the only bathroom. Its location was…less than ideal. It was directly off the kitchen where her mom spent pretty much every waking moment. Lucky for me, she was not around at the time.

                As I flushed the toilet, I prayed, “Please don’t clog, please don’t clog, PLEASE, DON’T CLOG!!!!” Yeah, it clogged. I scoured the room for a plunger to no avail. Who in their right mind doesn’t keep a plunger in their house!? Especially if I am your house guest!? Hopelessly, I tried to flush again which turned out to be a MASSIVE mistake! The toilet began overflowing at top speed! I ripped the door to the bathroom closet open, pulling out every towel I could reach to clean up the toilet water that was cascading out of the toilet at probably a trizillion miles a second. I frantically searched the room for something to unclog the toilet with (other than my arm). As the towels became soaked through, I started throwing the dirty clothes from the hamper down to keep the floor dry. Finally, I grabbed a toilet brush, thrusting it into the toilet as hard as I could. The toilet brush did eventually unclog the toilet, but it was a little worse for wear after all that…and I was traumatized.

                I braced myself as I opened the door. I kept picturing Judgmental Girl and her whole Judgmental Family standing on the other side of the door waiting to greet me with disgusted stares. I stepped boldly out into the kitchen to find it was still empty. LORD, I TRULY AM BLESSED!!! I booked it back outside hoping she hadn’t noticed that I had been gone for a long time. She had. It turned out I had been inside for almost a full half an hour. Not knowing how to explain myself, I told her I had gone into her room and watched TV for a while, winning myself Best Friend of the Year for sure.

Jerry Jones

                When I was in high school, I worked with my best friend, Dawn, at our hometown’s movie theatre, The Roseland. With only one screen, showing one movie a weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, it was a small operation. Dawn and I ran the concessions stand, opening at 7 p.m. and closing by 9 p.m. Our years there together were filled with constantly smelling of popcorn, sneaking candy bars, slipping in soda, freezing in the winter, melting in the summer, ice fights (filling popcorn tubs with ice and throwing it at each other with brutal force), sifting through movie posters going back for decades, and spying on people from the closed balcony. We had the best gossip in town. The Roseland was the only movie theatre for miles around, so people of all ages piled in any time we were showing a decent flick and, filled with excitement, they would buzz all around the theatre talking a little too freely. Dawn and I soaked up all the information we could and giggled about it from our private balcony seats, the top of our world.

                One fateful night, our mutual friend Anne came in with a group of friends. Anne was a couple years younger than Dawn and I and was somewhat synonymous with “drama”. I privately dreaded nights that Anne showed up, because she was notorious for bombarding us with prying questions and worrying us by leaving the theatre with various undesirable suitors. About half an hour into the film that evening I went to check that no cell phones were out and Anne followed me back to the lobby. “Hey, Sarah,” she began, “I don’t want to have any problems, but a girl from my group went into the ladies' restroom with Jerry Jones to have sex. Please don’t tell anyone I was the one who told you.” I assured Anne we would take care of it with discretion and practically skipped off to tell Dawn of this latest scandal. We didn’t really feel that the two of us would have the authority to shake the confidence of someone cocky enough to get frisky in a two stall bathroom who was only a few years our junior anyway, and decided to alert our superiors.

                Upon entering the office, we found only Linda, a sour woman in her late 60’s who ran the ticket booth most nights, and the owner’s wife, Mrs. Chandler, who was roughly the same age as Linda and was occasionally known to be a bit out of her mind so I’d heard. Seemingly unfazed by this scandalous development, the two women asked us to go confirm the story. Our teenage body’s alive with the spark of a juicy story, we devotedly carried out the task. We stood silently in the corner of the bathroom as a woman washed her hands and left the restroom, giving us a look that said, “what the fuck?” as she walked out the door. A few moments of silence passed before we heard a deep voice saying, “Hey, hey, hey! So I think we’re alone now!” Silently, Dawn and I looked at each other, mouths agape in wide unbelieving grins. Scarcely able to contain our fits of giggles, we shuffled out of the restroom. As the door swung shut behind me, I heard the same voice say, “What was that?”

                We reported to Mrs. Chandler and Linda, breathless from laughter and unable to hide our wicked grins. Mrs. Chandler sighed as if to say, “I’m too old for this shit,” and marched off to the women’s room, phone in hand with Linda, Dawn, and me in tow. She busted through the door like a gangster, barking at a few young gossiping girls to get out as Dawn and I huddled in the corner holding each other up as we shook with laughter. Rapping on the door, Mrs. Chandler called out, “Jerry Jones? We’ve got your parents on the phone. They want to speak to you.”

                “Shit,” we heard come hissing out from behind the stall door sending us into fresh peels of silent laughter (silent because of the fearsome glares we were getting from Linda). The girl’s voice called out again, “Uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s just me in here. I’m, uhm, just…pooping.”

                Mrs. Chandler wasn’t in the mood to play. “Young lady, we know that Jerry Jones is in there with you. You both need to come out now.”

                “No he’s not! It’s just me!”

                “Fine,” Mrs. Chandler called out, “We’ll just call the police. They’ll open the door for us.”

                “Just a minute,” Jerry Jones’ deep voice called out immediately. We heard a distinct ZIP; a moment later, the door opened, and Jerry Jones came barreling out. Attempting to slide past Mrs. Chandler, he said, “I’ll just be going now.”

                Mrs. Chandler’s arm shot out, blocking his path, holding him and the young girl in the corner of the restroom. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she spat out. “You listen to me! You listen to me, real good! This movie theatre is not your personal love shack! Obviously, your parents don’t want you two doing this or you’d do it at home, but you will NOT be pleasuring each other on my time!” As Mrs. Chandler launched into a full-on furious lecture, Dawn and I could barely hold ourselves upright from laughter. I leaned against the wall, arm around Dawn, as Dawn leaned against me, our heads together. Jerry Jones gave us the meanest, nastiest look he could muster. Mrs. Chandler shouted out, “Don’t you look at those girls! You look at me and listen up! I know you think you’re in love, but you two don’t know the first thing about love! You don’t have a damn clue what love is! You’re just children!”

                “Uh, I’ll just leave…” Jerry Jones tried, but was cut off again.

                “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mrs. Chandler’s fury growing by the second, she declared, “No! You two will sit through the rest of this movie with me between you! You will each be escorted to your parent’s cars where you will tell them what happened, and then you will be banned from the theatre for six months! Now, back to your seats!”

                As Mrs. Chandler marched the sorry suckers out of the restroom, she gave us a stern glare that had absolutely no effect on us whatsoever. We were far beyond the point of being concerned about discretion as we full-out ran to our balcony seats to watch Mrs. Chandler chaperone the remainder of Jerry Jones’ ill-fated movie date, shamelessly giggling and ogling at their unfolding punishments for the rest of the evening.

(Dawn and me, 2010. The only photo I can find from our movie theatre days.)

*Jerry Jones' name was changed for his privacy.