I decided to take it easy last Friday night—my liver was hurting and I had a call from my attorney early that day telling me someone had filed charges against me, claiming I’d stuck them with a $400 bar and dinner tab. Apparently witness claimed I had excused myself from the table, telling them I would be back in a minute and never returned. I will of course deny this until my last day but of course it could be entirely true because I don’t remember a damn thing from that night. I do however remember someone saying tequila and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the bus station under a pile of newspaper.
At any rate there would be no high jinx for me this Friday night. No, I needed some R & R so I would be ready the next day for the annual beer fest where I would undoubtedly make a complete ass out of myself once again.
So, Friday night I was nestled in the creases of my couch and was watching the Phillies on TV. I was halfway through a bottle of Jack Daniels when it occurred to me that I needed to do some grocery shopping and Friday night would be the perfect time to go. I know it’s not the most exciting way to spend a Friday night but these things need to be done and I didn’t feel like fighting the Saturday and Sunday crowds.
Thankfully only a few shoppers occupied the grocery store and as I weaved through the aisles with my shopping cart my bladder began to spasm. I’d polished off a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke with my Jack Daniels and had refused to urinate, feeling it was less than manly to get up and go, a silent game my friends and I had played for years when going on benders together and a damn hard habit to give up. I might have won the battle if any of my old drinking buddies were around but since they weren’t my victory of sorts brought me little joy.
“Damn it!” I cried. Now I would have to use the scourge of all those that despise germs: the public restroom and me without my anti-bacterial gel. I cursed myself repeatedly but it didn’t help to calm my bladder. I had no choice in the matter; I would have to use the dreaded public restroom.
I ran with my cart to the back of the store—items falling out of my cart as I made my way to the bathroom.
There was a young boy waiting standing next to the door when I parked my cart by the frozen fish freezer. He stared intently at the bathroom door.
I was willing to pay him off to jump ahead of him in line. “Are you waiting for the restroom?”
He looked up at me, his lips pinched together, his legs bending in at the knees. “I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes.”
I reached for my billfold. “How much is your spot in line worth to you?”
He looked up at me like I’d just urinated on his foot. “Huh?”
“Listen, I’ve got a medical condition. My bladder is very fragile. If I don’t go to the bathroom it could explode.”
The boy reached for a whistle that hung on a string around his neck. He wasn’t buying my bullshit.
“Okay, damn it. I’ll go when you’re done.”
He let the whistle fall back to his chest. “I don’t think there is anyone in there.”
I got down on my hands and knees and peered under the door. The light was on. As I angled my head to get a better view two eyes met mine under the door. I was so unnerved that I let out a yell and hopped to my feet.
The boy pushed back against the wall. “What was it?”
“Someone is definitely in there.”
I contemplated bolting for fear that I would be brought up on peeping tom charges to go along with the charges already pending against me but my bladder wouldn’t hear of it. No, I had to ride out the wave, which currently was the one sloshing around in my bladder.
We waited and waited and finally after ten more minutes the door burst open. Standing in the doorway was a woman of immense proportions, that is, to put in a less politically correct way, as human being as hefty as a water buffalo. She was wearing soiled pink polyester slacks and a white T-shirt with rainbow lettering that said: Jesus. Sweat poured from under her tangle of dirty blond hair and down her face. It looked as if she’d been in the bathroom running in place with the heat turned up.
Her eyes widened and before either of us could utter a word she took off in a sprint, slamming the door behind her. The kid didn’t give a good goddamn, he just wanted to take use the commode. He hurried into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.
I crossed my legs and tried to think of dry things like the desert and Ann Coulter, anything that would keep my mind off my urinary predicament.
A moment later the door burst open again and this time it was the kid. He slammed the door behind him.
“You can go.” He said over his shoulder as he hurried off
I wondered what in the hell he could have done in there in three seconds that he needed to wait a half hour for. Had he only needed to spit? If that was the case then he could have gone out in the parking lot. Lots of uncouth bastards use public walkways as their personal spittoons.
But this wasn’t the time to contemplate the kid’s lighting fast bathroom break. Urgent urinary business needed to be taken care of and so I burst into the bathroom and hurriedly locked the door behind me. Luckily the urinal was right next to the door.
I unzipped my cargo pants and my unit sprung out like an out of control fire hose. Luckily, I was able to grab hold before the urine hit the wall.
Ah, the relief. It was marvelous and for a moment I was lost in the release of pressure but only for a moment, for after I was urinating at full throttle I began to become aware of my surroundings and in an instant the awful smell. I slowly turned my head and what I beheld was something I will never forget.
Shit. There was shit everywhere. There was an explosion of shit on the seat of the toilet and a giant wad of toilet paper spread on top of it. There was shit on the wall and on the floor. The fat lady had vandalized the bathroom with her ass. There was no way I could stop pissing at that point and so I held my breath and tried to ride it out but damn it I had more urine in me than oxygen and after a while I had to breathe and when I gulped at the putrid air I dry heaved, nearly losing the night’s Jack Daniels.
In a panic I thought about running but my bladder wasn’t cooperating. I’d waited so long to urinate that once the seal was broken there was no putting it back. I was pissing so hard I could have etched my name in the back of the urinal. No, stopping abruptly would not be an option.
My head spun. I looked over at the sink and it too was filled with shit. I saw pieces of corn, carrots and other pieces of vegetables in there. There would be no washing my hands…and then it hit me. How was I going to open up the door without touching the handle? The paper towel rack was covered in you guessed it, shit.
The lack of oxygen and stench was beginning to make me light headed. I teetered and grabbed hold of the pipe that lead into the urinal for balance. I was draining the last of the urine from my bladder at this point but still had not figured out how to open the door without touching the handle.
In my drunken and oxygen depleted state I came up with the idea of running full steam at the door and knocking it down. There was no way in hell I was going to touch that knob. I shook off my unit and zipped my cargo pants. My Burmese jungle boots would provide perfect traction on the slick shit laden floor.
I reared back and charged at the door. The impact shot a bolt of pain into my bad shoulder and I knew I’d dislocated it again. I fell back, the door still intact.
“God damn it,” I cried.
There was no choice now. I was growing weak from the stench and lack of oxygen. I reached for the door handle and turned. The door didn’t budge. I’d somehow jammed the lock mechanism. I felt the walls closing in on me and the Jack Daniels threatened to come up but I fought it back down.
Desperate I ripped my T-shirt from my body and wrapped it around my face. The ample amount of cologne I’d dampened it with before I went to the store acted nicely in covering up the smell.
I soon noticed that the hinges of the door were on the inside and quickly formulated a plan. I took out my micro-Leatherman and with some effort pried the bolts out of the hinges. It took some time to pry the door out of the frame but I managed it nicely.
When I removed the door I was horrified to find a dozen or so grocery store workers gathered around outside. “Don’t go in there unless you have a mask.” I pushed the door back in place so the workers wouldn’t have to endure the stench. “The woman that was in there before me ass blasted the place. You might want to call the Hazmat team and have them hose the place down. This is no job for amateurs. Now where can I wash my hands?”
A Mexican with a big beer belly wiped his hands on his apron and stepped forward. “Go to the meat section and use the anti-bacterial wipes.”
“Goddamn, brilliant.”
I headed for the meat section and found the anti-bacterial wipes near the pork. Since my shirt was already off I started a full body wipe down starting with my armpits-- Germs will cling to that damp hair like fruit bats on a clump of bananas. Next I thoroughly cleansed my arms and ample patch of chest hair.
I was busy wiping down my hands when a flash of pink caught my eye. I turned and there, in the pastry aisle drooling over a cheese Danish the size of a dingy was the woman who had fouled up the bathroom. The audacity of this woman to still be in the store spreading around her germs brought up an ire in me that can’t adequately be explained in words. I got out my cell phone and dialed 911. After hearing my story the dispatcher put me on hold.
If this woman had been truly sorry for the mess she’d caused in the restroom then she would have fled. No, this had been no accident. It was pure and simple vandalism in the third degree. She didn’t give a good goddamn what she’d done.
The cops weren’t getting back to me so I decided it was time to take justice into my own hands. A citizen’s arrest seemed appropriate but how could I apprehend her without touching her? I looked around for something to put over my hands but found nothing. While scanning the aisles I spotted pet supplies and a display of leashes. Bingo. I would make a lasso and hall her in, hog tie her and wait for the authorities. My experience at rope work was of course almost non-existent. Perhaps in my youth—when I thought I wanted to grow up to be a cowboy—I had dabbled in lassoing my little brother but other than that I hadn’t done anything with rope since then except tie an occasional girlfriend to my bedposts.
Very quickly I tied the leashes together as the big woman continued to load her car with pastries. Once the leashes were secure I began twirling the makeshift lasso overhead and began sneaking up behind her using a beef jerky display as cover.
It is of course my nature to act over zealously and with half a bottle of Jack Daniels greasing my chassis I was unable to conceal my enthusiasm I let out a holler as I threw my lasso. The woman turned as the lasso sailed through the air. She was holding a family sized box of pastries and with great agility leaped to the side. My lasso landed and I tugged. Unfortunately I had lassoed a four gallon jar of pickles and it smashed on the floor.
Store workers seemed to come from everywhere. They were an angry mob, no doubt stirred up by the mess they’d witnessed in the bathroom. I figured I was their hero for trying to apprehend the shitter.
“There he is the guy that shit all over the bathroom.”
Okay, maybe I wasn’t their hero. A simple case of mistaken identity but I didn’t have time to explain things now, the culprit of the biggest bathroom disaster I’d ever witnessed was getting away. She sprinted down the aisle. I dropped my dog leash lasso and chased after her.
Despite her obvious bulk she was quite fleet of foot and I wasn’t gaining any ground on her.
“Stop her, she shit all over the bathroom.”
People in line at the registers looked at me like I was crazy and perhaps they were partially right but there was no way I was going to let that bathroom fouling bastard escape the long arm of the law, or in my case a shorter, hairier thicker arm.
“Stop, I know what you did!”
She glanced over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at me. I thought she would take a nose dive or run into a car but despite her 500 pounds or so of bulk the woman was as agile as a leopard and was in her car and speeding off before I could get to her. I surely would have caught her had I not imbibed that night’s spirits and been in a state of oxygen deprivation. I slumped against a nearby Prius and tried to regain my composure.
I did manage to memorize her license plate number and called the police back but they were of little help. They said it would be hard to prove that she had made the mess in the bathroom. I suggested they might take a sample for DNA testing but they declined sighting a backlog of more important DNA testing. Truth be told I think they just didn’t want to go in that restroom and frankly I didn’t blame them.
Inside the store I could see an angry mob collecting. They were going to get some vigilante justice and I was there target. My arm hurt like hell but I gathered myself and mad it too my car and sped off with several store employees chasing after me with brooms and mops.
I spent the night in the emergency room waiting to have my arm popped back into place and while I sat there and stewed I made up my mind for this woman to be called out. It seemed just that she be hunted down and be sentenced to mandatory public bathroom cleaning for a duration of no less than twelve consecutive lifetimes. In other words her punishment would be the same hell for eternity that she put me through in several minutes. Seemed fair to me…
