Coming from anyone else I’d think “wow, how charming”. In this case, it made me snort.
Ah yes, the Shit Siezure. Usually not to stop and pump one out, but to stop all movement…bowel movements included…until you can regain control over the auto-sphincter dilation. Sometimes the precurser to shitting one’s pants.
I used to work at a Borders before. One evening a guy (a regular customer) comes in with his elderly father, making a beeline for the restrooms in the back of the store. Didn’t make it. There was a trail of crap all the way through the store. I don’t know what the old guy had been eating but, man, it was a lot.
Anyway, we got the guy some plastic bags so he could help his father (who must have had Alzheimer’s or something) and then the Assistant Manager cleaned it up. There was no way I was gonna get near it.
Then, it happened again the following weekend! We were sympathetic but we had to tell the guy that he really couldn’t bring his dad in if this was gonna happen everytime. I think he just stopped at our store 'cause he knew where the bathrooms were and he was in a desperate situation but we just couldn’t have someone crapping on the floor every week.
Yes, I remember doing the “regain control over the auto-sphincter dilation” thing as a kid. We called it “having the poops”. The poops wasn’t actually pooping, it was the anal gyrations you’d perform in trying to keep from pooping.
I remember playing with my sister and all of a sudden getting them and going into full body clench. She looked at me and said “What’s the matter with you?”
Me: “Nnnngggghhhaa”
Her: “Oh, you’ve got the poops?”
Me: “Nnnngggghhhaa”
If your anal pucker tuckered out then you had to do the crossed leg thing but that was strictly a last resort because if it failed you were going to get squeezed BM everywhere.
I’m enjoying theses years between childhood and old age where the possibility of such extrusions are thankfully somewhat limited.
Lucky you.
I still seize up on occasion. Lucky me, I can still master my anus, although he sometimes gains the upper hand for a few seconds. I’m told I’m hilarious when I seize up.
You should see Elsa Clench.
Okay, is no one other than me disturbed by lieu’s friend’s familiarity with, and nonchalance about the “poo face” of a six-year-old kid?
I mean, sure, anyone can have an accident, but this sounded like it was a regular thing with the kid.
Don’t be, cher3. He’s a very bright and completely healthy kid that was just so busy playing that he delayed heading for the restroom a bit too long. I definately got the impression this was just an accident and an infrequent one at that.
Oh, good. I figured I must be reading it wrong. It was just that fact the it had a name and all.
My euphemism for it is, “intestinal distress.” Seems like everyone knows what you mean when you say that.
There was a mystery regarding a buddy of mine a while back.
He and a bunch of friends had driven 40 miles to see another friend’s new pad. They were meeting in the pub first. My buddy had ridden his motorcycle, and was in full leathers. Everyone trooped into the pub, but as they crossed the threshold, my buddy simply said “I don’t feel well, I’m going home”.
We were all a little worried about him, and speculation was rife.
It was only years later that he confessed that what had happened was that he’d tried to crack a little fart while walking in the pub, but little Master Windypop had brought along his bigger, more squishy brother. Said buddy was wearing jeans under his leathers, so the situation was pretty tight. He had to ride 40 miles home on his bike, with doody squeezing around all over his ass. I nearly shat myself laughing when I found out.
40 miles?! That seems like an awfully long bike ride home after a night at the pub even without the carry-on baggage.
Well, with the Alzheimer’s, no surprise that it happened the very next week. “Those who forget the mistakes of the past, etc.” *
Gotta love that totally American institution of “Assistant Manager”, though. A few more dollars, a lot more hours, and always the shit end of the stick (this time literally).
*I am so going to hell over that…
This cracked me up.
Two public poopings for me. One due to illness. One to pregnancy and the joys of constipation.
The illness was being hit with vertigo and being so dizzy I was puking like Linda Blair (that is how I remember it and I am sure my husband wouldn’t disagree.) It was miserable ( and it got worse after that. )
After your body horks up its innards for awhile, the lower intestines want to get in on the hilarity and while I was laying on a hospital exam table barfing into a kidney shaped gack dish, out of my backside came a very dreaded and very wet raspberry.
Was I mortified that I was about to poop all over myself in a doctor’s office while my head was spinning like a mofo?
The thought, the actual thought that went through my mind was Oh Dear God not on my new dress! The credit card bill hasn’t even come in on it yet! Why does this kinda thing always happen on new clothes???11111!!!
My husband, being the freaking saint he is and taking the part of the wedding vows of In Sickness to heart, cleaned me up and my dress was saved. I haven’t worn it since. I think it is cursed.
And for the pregnancy pooping incident, let’s just say it had been about 10 days without a satisfactory BM. During the Christmas Over eating Season. Midway through pregnancy. I was about to leave from work for the usual 45 min. drive home and did the " Does the bladder or rectum have anything to leave in the bathroom?"
It came back negatory and off I went onto the highway. The second I get up to speed my sphincter muscle says, " I don’t want to bother you, but I have a package to deliver."
“Can it wait until we get home?”
“I think we will sit tight.”
Naturally, as the fates would have it, their was some kind of logjam on the highway. I did a mental calcuation of every public john off each exit and if I could make it based on the how bad it seemed to be and the flow of traffic.
Well, naturally, after my last exit with a viable and somewhat clean restroom, my sphnicter checked back in again with urgency, " I have to go now!"
I ended up driving in stop and go traffic with my ass off the seat of the car, squeezing my butt together and gritting my teeth in sheer misery. I had tears in my eyes.
I thought I would let off some pressure by farting a little… well, it came with a package. A runny package. And there was now a stampede at the proverbial door to get out. What I thought was pain before was nothing compared to this. It was more painful than delivery. I was practicing lamaze breathing and not sitting on my seat. How I never wrecked the car I don’t know.
I pull off at my exit and there is McDonald’s ( The Reststop of the nation) I secure myself in the stall with a wad of paper towels and proceed to have the biggest dump of my life that I ever have. If I had a camera, I would have taken a picture that is how freaking releived and proud I was, even though I had to leave my underpants in the garbage.
I must have lost at least 10 pounds that day.
There you have it. My pooping in public stories. I love this place.
I have never done that. I have no idea why people think that I have.
Came within a hair of it on Sunday.
The weather was beautiful, just right for a nice long run along the canal – I loaded up some good tunes, put on my slightly-broken-in new shoes and enjoyed nature and the smiles on all of the families out biking or walking.
Six miles into the twelve-mile run things started rumbling. I have felt this way before during a run, and figured that I would simply endure the discomfort for the rest of the way…except my car was still six miles away, and that meant around 50 minutes of physical exertion while trying to keep the bowels quiet.
After two more miles, my sweat became clammy and cold and I felt the pressure rising to an unendurable peak. A quick glance at my surroundings showed me the worst: the canal towpath was straight and wide, and it was populated with all kinds of folks running, biking, walking. Being the first weekend of April, there was no foliage on the trees, no bushes, nothing. I could have walked twenty yards into the bushes and everyone still would have seen exactly what I was doing.
My wife was at a sick friend’s home, too far for me to call her on the cell and beg for her to come pick me up. No way around it: 50 more minutes 
I was wearing light beige shorts too. This load was definitely pure liquid and there was absolutely no way that it was going to simply park in the tighty-whities and keep calm: if it let loose, my whole backside was going to be brown and it was going to run down my legs, and I was still going to have to run 50 more minutes like that. Right past the baby strollers.
At mile 9, it was coming on so strong that I had to stop running and walk, so that I could focus all of my being on clenching the cheeks. As I was giving one last look through the thin leafless woods for a hiding place I caught a glimpse of hope off the right side: a park! Where there’s a park, there’s bathrooms… I quickened my pace, keeping in mind the possibility of disappointment.
My dignity was saved by a smelly putrid Porta-John – I made my deposit without even as much as a second glance at the seat. The event was every bit as explosive as I had imagined. Five minutes later I was on the trail with a smile on my face and my shorts just as clean as they were when I started 
.
Agreed.
Fortunately for you, lieu, there’s a good chance the future is going attribute it to you.
Building a credible reputation on these matters is finally going to start paying dividends.
My dad tells me a story about when he was a little kid in the 30s and he’s in school and they were all about 7 years old and they were marching in a circle. My dad is all march, march, march, slip…march, march, march, slip… and he looks down and the kid in front of him is dropping nuggets out of his pants and my dad is slipping in them.
Kinda makes you long for the good ol’ days…
Yeah, having been in retail management, I was feeling really lucky I wasn’t at that particular point…
Thankfully, my story is only an “almost” story … several years ago I had one child in school and another still at home. I would get up each morning and help my older child get ready, pack both children the car and drive to school. There was a brief wait in the drop-off line, and then home again. Generally these trips would be made when I was in a pre-public state, i.e., hair still in Kramer Mode, clothing sweats and a t-shirt.
Usually my “morning constitutional” would coincide nicely with my return home after dropping off child #1. One morning, not so much. Matters become somewhat urgent as we slowly snaked through the parking lot. Finally my daughter disembarked. I only lived a few blocks away. Could I make it? I think not.
I floored it across the parking lot, untethered child #2 from his carseat in record time and raced to the church, praying it would be unlocked. It was. My poor little son was fairly astonished to find the normal morning routine distrupted by a flight through the church to the restrooms, where poor grateful mommy made her final delivery of the morning.
Amen!