# Murphy's Law regarding a job you can't take breaks from (TMI) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 7, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542 "2005-12-07T19:07:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/21 "2005-12-08T21:47:20Z")
Music director in a show at a prominant Cambridge, MA ivy league community college. Act I went very well. We started Act II. At exactly 4 measures into the first song, my dinner made it known that it was looking for the nearest possible exit. And this was not a “must take a shit within the next 5 minutes”, this was a “must take a shit right now, no questions asked.” And yet the act was over an hour long. Man, I took those songs at some rather brisk tempi. The orchestra was taken a bit by surprise at how even the slow love songs were done at patter speed. Finally we got to the last dialog before the finale. It was a long one. I seriously contemplated walking out quietly, in front of an audience of 300+, going down 2 flights of stairs, into the men’s room, undoing my tux pants, exorcising whatever demons might be in my ass (and they were true minions of Hell, I was sure), wiping the nuclear waste away, refastening my too-tight pants, washing up, going back upstairs, and sneaking back into the theatre… Before the next song had to start. I had all sorts of visions of walking into the theatre to an audience, cast, and orchestra of over 350 people, all wondering where the hell I’d got myself off to. The happy ending is I made it through the show then downstairs just before the shitstorm started. Ever since then, I always poop before Act II. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/22 "2005-12-08T21:56:10Z")
She’s in the middle of nowhere in Florida up to her waist in water. Do you grow Lotus flowers for the drug market? You do specify you worked in a lab, when not in the water. Do you farm gatters for the university, to experiment on limb regeneration? Do you have to take turns guarding secret underwater UFO swamp bases? Are you a Skunk Ape researcher? ---
**Author:** ![Penchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/74df32/32.png) [@Penchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penchan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/23 "2005-12-08T23:07:17Z")
> [@Push You Down](#): > > Oh I shat myself at work once. It was wonderful. > > I was working as a House Manager at a theater. I was alone in the lobby when I literally shat myself (I had an insane case of food poisoning just starting to flower, I refused to let it come out my mouth so it found another way out) with about 5 minutes left in the play. I had to be there to bid the audience good night as they left. I ran to the bathroom, washed out my pants, redressed, but was now wet and sweating profusely and sickly looking, and made it upstairs with just enough time to say goodnight to people. I then drove home and pojectile vomited on myself the entire drive home. After the first burst of vomit, there was no reason to stop the car. I just kept going. You sir (ma’am?) are disturbing the student that’s participating in my psycholgy experiment. I’m trying so hard not to laugh and disturb my participant that my boss is giving me weird looks. But I can’t get the image out of my head of you driving your car with your mouth open with cartoonish vomit cascading onto your lap all the way home. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/24 "2005-12-09T02:31:46Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Where do you work that you have to stand in waist-deep water for eight hours? The Flo-duh Everglades. > [@Harmonius Discord](#): > > Are you a Skunk Ape researcher? I’m a fish biologist. Not too many skunks or apes in my neck of the woods, unfortunately. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/25 "2005-12-09T03:40:28Z")
Glad to hear that monstro. You do realize I was ribbing you I hope. Don’t take it as a personal assult. I’m not implying you took it as a personal attack now either. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/26 "2005-12-09T03:52:52Z")
> [@Harmonious Discord](#): > > Glad to hear that monstro. You do realize I was ribbing you I hope. Don’t take it as a personal assult. I’m not implying you took it as a personal attack now either. Hehe. I knew you were joking. And my post was kinda mysterious. I talk about the Everglades all the time on the board, I just assumed that people knew that’s where I work. I forgot to add in my first post: my sister bought me a box of Depends because I told her how difficult it is for me to simply urinate when I’m out in the field (the whole chest-waders-in-deep-water thing). I have yet to wear them because I’m afraid that 1)people will know I’m wearing a diaper, 2)they will leak, and 2)the diaper will imbibe water if my waders were to get flooded (as they sometimes do in deep water), leaving me with a soggy mess wrapped around my pelvic region. But the Depends will come in handy one day, I firmly believe. ---
**Author:** ![T\_SQUARE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9de053/32.png) [@T\_SQUARE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T_SQUARE)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/27 "2005-12-09T04:48:18Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Working in an office. Report is due in literally 20 minutes. I had drunk literally 10 cups of coffee in the past hour, and the desk was littered with cig butts. > > And I was noticing the needs of another kind of butt–my OWN. A tremendous LAWG was slowly but inevitably giving birth to itself in my Calvin Kleins. > > Should I run to the john–just a tantalizing 20 ft. away? But the report! Now due in just 15 minutes! > > I was furiously typing, massaging PowerPoint slides and Word documents into a coherent and valuable whole. But my _hole_! Sweat slid down my face as my ass rose involuntarily a foot or so off my chair. I nearly burst into tears, still typing, and my sphincter entered the zone of complete relaxation. The hot dumpage proceeded to make of itself a literal “pantload.” > > My thighs no longer able to maintain their Etruscan burden, my posterier hit the plush Steelcase chair, smooshing the pantload every which way within the domain of my trousers, and creating a faintly audible _ploompsh_. My fingers continued to type furiously. To my additional horror, an ineffable stench–a truly fecal “rebel yell”–flew from my rump in every direction. Eyebrows raised, handkerchiefs covered mouths, and cries of offense and fear could be heard. > > But the report got done on time, I ran from the office, threw a newpaper on my car seat, and drove straight home. > > The above is probably my biggest “TMI” story. Wow. I’ve got to ask, how did your co-workers react in the days and weeks after? At my office, a poor tie decision one day will probably lead to a month or so of an unflattering nickname, a humorous caricature of the offender drawn on the marker board, and perhaps some salt in his coffee. If you were to soil yourself here, I would thing you’d have to find a new job at best and a new industry at worst out of humiliation. But I must say, what you did is dedication. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/28 "2005-12-09T10:12:11Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Hehe. I knew you were joking. And my post was kinda mysterious. I talk about the Everglades all the time on the board, I just assumed that people knew that’s where I work. > > I forgot to add in my first post: my sister bought me a box of Depends because I told her how difficult it is for me to simply urinate when I’m out in the field (the whole chest-waders-in-deep-water thing). I have yet to wear them because I’m afraid that 1)people will know I’m wearing a diaper, 2)they will leak, and 2)the diaper will imbibe water if my waders were to get flooded (as they sometimes do in deep water), leaving me with a soggy mess wrapped around my pelvic region. > > But the Depends will come in handy one day, I firmly believe. How heavy are they if they fully soak up with water? 1. You don’t want to drown, because they weighted you down. The news media would plaster that around the country for a month. 2. You don’t want to almost drown, because they weighted you down. The news media would plaster that around the country for a month. You’ld try to shop and people would be pointing saying “There goes the lady that almost drowned wearing Depends.” ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/29 "2005-12-09T10:16:30Z")
I forgot the punch line. :mad: Mortification either way. 😃 It’s just not as funny in the next post. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542/30 "2005-12-09T22:34:30Z")
> [@T\_SQUARE](#): > > Wow. I’ve got to ask, how did your co-workers react in the days and weeks after? I was their hero, because the TPS report got done, and the boss wasn’t calling up the two Bobs to check out our job descriptions, etc. etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/murphys-law-regarding-a-job-you-cant-take-breaks-from-tmi/334542.md?page=1)