See, you all wouldn’t be so hard on me if you knew about …The Loaf of Terror.
In college, after a show, my friends and I attended a party that moved from house to house, getting broken up by cops and neighbors. Eventually some of us settled down on couches and the floor at the house of 4 guy-friends to sleep it off - no one wanted to walk anyone else home at that hour of the night. We drunkenly settled off to sleep, waking in the morning to shrieks from the bathroom. One of the girls, innocently trying to go about her morning business, had stumbled across The Loaf of Terror.
It not only filled the bowl, it rose up out of the bowl to wave hello and smile. And its offspring (or parent, it was hard to tell with) lay prone on the floor next to the bowl.
The incident affected us all profoundly. Fingers were pointed. Accusations were made. Songs were written. During the months ahead, nights of partying would end with hurt feelings and paranoia and the words “Dude, you were SO responsible for the Loaf of Terror, just admit it now.” We’d play mind games with each other, ganging up and trying to convince each suspect that everyone else knew their terrible secret.
The boys in the house accused the girls. “There is no way we’d foul our own house like that!” The girls stood firm. “There is no way we would not sit on the toilet or create something that large.” Charts were drawn, forensic evidence was sifted to determine whether it had started on the floor and then the person had turned around to sit on the bowl - pointing toward a male perpetrator or whether it had started in the bowl, overwhelmed it, and continued onto the floor.
Three years later, as the youngest of us graduated college, a legendary Truth or Dare game was played at my house among the eight of us. Hot wax was employed. People streaked around my shitty NE D.C. neighborhood. Lesbian and heterosexual couplings, old jealousies and feuds, pranks, lusts, crushes, and mistakes were admitted to and reenacted. Boys were forced to dress in the lingerie they’d bought the girls during periods of dating years ago. Finally a hush came over the room. The candles had burned down almost all the way. We were surrounded by empty beer and wine bottles, sitting in a circle on the floor. And an unholy question was asked of each of us who selected “Truth.” "Did you create the Loaf of Terror? Did YOU? "
It was Mike.