I’m about to tell you a story that will gross you out, make you judge me, make you feel better about yourself, and/or maybe even inspire you…

(Honestly, if it “inspires” you, then you might have more issues than me… Jk, jk – your Bacon is beautiful, even if it is a little fucked up like mine…)

Regardless, I thought I would share this story if nothing else but to make someone out there laugh, and to put my no-shame, no-guilt philosophy to the test… 

(***WARNING*** The following story gets a tad graphic and unladylike, so if things like picking up your doggy’s doo-doo or scratching buttcracks make you shudder… then by all means, you SHOULD read on, because I think you need to man up a little! Jk, you don’t have to read if you don’t want to… I’ll just JUDGE YOU FOREVER JUST LIKE YOU JUDGE ME, KAREN.)

Chapter One: Kung Pao

It was a lovely Monday… Labor Day, in fact. The guy I am seeing was in town to spend the weekend with me. (He lives about an hour away, out in the sticks… A very outdoorsy/survivalist/camp-every-night type of guy.) We had just enjoyed a pleasant couple days together, having gone for a little picnic and a walk in the park.

Instead of packing our own meal, we decided to get takeout Chinese. I had kung pao chicken and Chinese donuts (I regularly fantasize about Chinese donuts… I can’t truly enjoy a Chinese meal without them) and he had some weird shrimp shit. (Say that ten times fast: “Shrimp Shit, Shrimp Shit, Shrimp Shit, Surp Sit…”)

We also brought my 3-month-old kitty, Mogley, along to see how he’d do outside. (I wrote about Mogley and some pussy problems in a previous post.) My boyfriend wanted to prove to me that Mogley would be fine to take camping with us one of these days, as I had been making a solid case for why I wanted to wait before going on another creepy-crawly-ridden adventure. (Btw, Mogley was terrified of being outside and kept trying to hide in the car… I WIN!)

After we ate, I had my boyfriend help me find the public park restrooms (as I REFUSE to emancipate my bowels in the wild, despite my boyfriend’s “It’s perfectly natural” arguments).

Once I finished my business, we headed back to the car, where I popped my phone out of its case (it’s a leather case that’s also a wallet and closes over the front of my phone) so that it would fit in the phone holder suction-cupped to my windshield. (My boyfriend had bought the holder for me because he was sick of me trying to squeeze my phone in various nooks and crannies when using Google Maps…) The phone can’t fit in the holder while inside the bulky wallet case without all my credit, insurance, and Texas Roadhouse gift cards falling out.

(This is all relevant to my story, so stay with me…) 

Chapter Two: Road Trip

Fast forward back to Monday. It was a nice lazy day that we spent with my family. My sister bought us all Pizza Hut (STUFFED CRUST, Y’AAAAAALL!) and asked my sisters and I to be her bridesmaids. (She gave us each a box with pictures of us, and I got an “I Do Crew” shot glass – it was adorable. Like no, seriously – I’m not being sarcastic for once…) 

What sucked was that my seasonal allergies were really kicking my ass that day. I was sneezing constantly, which, as you can imagine, is very exhausting. It was like I had run a couple marathons, and then some…

So my boyfriend and I just decided to have a lazy day of snacks and TV.

It was about 6:30 p.m. when I decided I had better drive my boyfriend home. (His car is even shittier than mine and probably would have peeled to a pulp had he driven it out to me…) I wanted to get him home around 7:45 so that I could get home by 9ish so that I could be ready for bed by 9:30 so that I could take my meds by 10 so that I wouldn’t feel like death when I had to wake up for work the next day at 6:30 a.m….

(*Stops talking to take a breath.)

I shoved a wad of tissues in my pocket to prepare for the trip. (I was still sneezing…)

I decided to take Mogley along for the long drive. (Oddly enough, he loves the car but hates the outdoors.) He likes to climb around all the seats, watch the windshield wipers move, and then fall asleep on my lap. (Yes, it’s just as adorable as it sounds.) I drove even slower than usual so as not to wake Mogley at any point. (My boyfriend laughed at me as a frail old lady sped past me…)

The first few minutes of the drive were uneventful. It wasn’t until we were well on our way on the interstate that I felt it… 

The worst stomach cramp that I’ve had in a very long time… 

You know, the kind that makes you bargain with God, long for death, and sweat from all the gas you’re so desperately trying to hold in to protect all the innocent lives around you…

Yeah, that kind. 

All the while my boyfriend is deeply confiding in me and Mogley is walking all over my lap, pressing all the right pressure points that had me so close to ending this story in a very different way…

I just keep nodding as my boyfriend talks. Should I have said something? Probably. But in my defense, I was focusing every ounce of energy I had on not shitting myself every time we hit a bump in the road…

The cramps come and go in waves. Periodically something bubbles in my belly and I feel fine for a moment (“Oh, I’m fine now, I’ll make it there and back, no problem!”), but then it’s quickly quelled by Oh-Shit-This-Is-It spells.

I’m quite certain I owe my soul to Satan and my sanctity to God, along with a whole list of other desperate promises I need to follow through with that miraculously got me from Point A to Point B that night… 

If only it had been enough to get me from Point B to Point A…

Chapter Three: Pit Stop

Approaching my boyfriend’s driveway, as I can only imagine, was like receiving manna from Heaven. (Honestly, I think it was better.) I pull in and, just as I am ready to blurt that I have to shit in his dad’s bathroom and “GET OUT OF MY WAY” (it was his dad’s house)…   

I see his dad standing there on the porch, watching as we pull in.

What was I gonna do? “Oh, hey, how are you, Sir? Beg your pardon, but I have to go explode shit in your bathroom that may or may not backsplash and leave a toxic smell reverberating throughout your house…” 

My boyfriend takes what feels like a lifetime to get his stuff out of the backseat of my car. (He carries a buncha camping/survivalist shit with him everywhere… WELL IT SURE AIN’T HELPIN’ ME SURVIVE IN THIS SCENARIO, IS IT, STEVE IRWIN??) When he finally gets everything out, he stands by my window (I did not dare move, much less get out of the car) and gives me an inquisitive look. (I had been quiet most of the drive, which is saying a lot since, you know… I never shut up.) 

“Well, do ya wanna come in for a minute?” he asks.

Good God, man, are you TRYING to kill me????

“Um, no, I, uh, gotta get Mogley home, okay, see ya, BYE!”

He awkwardly watches as I round the driveway and pull out.

Finally, now I can fart all I want and I just gotta make it home…

I’m in a mad panic at this point. Considering I am out in the middle of the sticks, there aren’t a whole lotta places to stop to use the restroom. I keep going back and forth on whether or not I think I can make it…

“Okay, we’re good, I can do this, just keep farting…”

“NOPE! Don’t do that! It’s coming out!”

“Phew, that was a close one! I’m gonna make it…”

“IT’S COMIIIIIINNNNNNGG!!”

I can’t take it anymore… I decide I have to do the thing that I always swore I’d never do…

I was gonna have to shit on the side of the road. 

I knew there were a lot of dark, large-field areas out there where I could get away with it. All I had to do was keep driving straight until I found one…

I don’t remember much about those crucial moments between making that decision and finally stopping the car. All I remember is that I didn’t make any turns, I saw those orange arrow signs signaling a sharp turn at some point, and I passed through at least two lights. 

When I finally find “the spot,” I take a deep breath as I pull the car over to the side of the road and stop…

It was time.

The spot where I stop has no street lights, so it’s very dark, which is what I want. There is a house nearby, but it is dark and a short distance away on the other side of a large bush-like tree. (Sorry, I’m no tree enthusiast – I don’t know what specimen it was, and besides… I WAS ABOUT TO SHIT MY FUCKIN’ BRAINS OUT, GIVE ME A BREAK.) Across the street is an open field, with some large rounded structure in the distance that I don’t really care to identify in that moment.

I quickly turn off my car (no way was I going to put my flashers on) and desperately look around for something to wipe myself with. (Ironically, I had had toilet paper in my car several weeks prior, but brilliant me wanted to “clean out” my car…) 

The only thing I come up with is a disposable face mask I have in the car for COVID emergencies…

I grab it, kiss Mogley farewell, hop out, lock the car, and hobble over to the grass.

I get as close to the large bush-tree as I can before I can’t hold it in anymore…

I’ll spare you the gory details, but man, some ants were about to get the downpour of their life. (“Flash flood warning” is an understatement…)

Of course, as I do “my biz” in the supposedly discreet field, several cars SUDDENLY decide this is a road they want to drive down – meaning bright headlights spotlight this squating chick and her explosive woes…

(As their bright lights passed by, I could see Mogley’s silhouette in my car window…)

I’m sure at least two of the cars saw me. I mean, there’s no way, since I didn’t make it as far from the roadside as I would have liked.

But oh, the relief…

Once I feel like the tank is finally empty, I do my best to “clean house” with the mask. It isn’t easy, but it would have to do. (I felt terribly guilty leaving it there in the grass, but there was no way that casualty of war was coming back in the car with me…)

As I walk back to the car (yes, with my pants pulled up, thank you very much), I put my hands in my pocket, ashamed. And what do I find in my pocket? 

Tissues. 

“Oh, COME ON!”

I shake my head as I open the car door and sit down…

And just like that, would you believe the tank filled right back up again?

Once again, I jump out of the car and run to the tree-bush. I search for a spot I can be certain isn’t the same as the last dropping, so as to not accidentally step in it. (I didn’t want to double-dip…) 

Roadside Shit 2.0…

Well, at least this time I have tissues…

Finally, when I get back to the car, I feel like it’s actually finished this time. I exhale and look down at Mogley, who is staring at me with wide eyes…

I say to him, “We never speak of this again.”

He looks away…

So I commence the drive home, feeling SO much lighter and grateful to be alive. I start theorizing the possible causes of such an explosive bowel reaction. Maybe I had been food poisoned by the kung pao chicken from the day before? Or maybe it was a lactose intolerant reaction from the stuffed-crust pizza?

I may never know…

Chapter Four: Now You See Me… 

When I am about five minutes from home, I decide to stop for gas because the tank is low. (And when I say “low,” I mean the bright orange empty light was blinking at me, and I was seconds away from emptying yet ANOTHER tank that night…) 

So I pull up to a pump, get out of the car, and reach into my pocket for my wallet…

…only there’s no wallet.

Realization slowly sets in… 

Oh, God… NO! NO! NOOOOOO!

I desperately search my car in every nook, cranny, seat crack, compartment, and dirty tissue box.

No wallet. 

Sooooo… To summarize, here’s where I’m at at this point:

• I took a shit out in the middle of nowhere.
• I don’t remember where I took the shit.
• My wallet’s not in my car.
• My wallet’s not in my pockets.

Conclusion: My wallet fell out of my car at the middle-of-nowhere place I took my shit and I have no clue where that is… 

I was screwed.

I start panicking. Not only were my debit cards, driver’s license, and health insurance card in that wallet, but so was the Texas Roadhouse gift card!

Could this night GET any worse??

I drive home as fast as I can (praying my gas tank can hold out just a second longer). When I pull into my parents’ driveway (yes, I still live at home, KAREN, but THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT!), I do another deep search of my car. 

No luck.

There is only one thing left to do…

I have to tell my boyfriend that I shit on the side of the road.

So I try calling him once. He doesn’t answer. I wait like five minutes and then try again.

Please don’t be sleeping, please don’t be sleeping…

“Hello?”

I immediately start rambling, “Hey, hi, okay, here’s the thing, this is both funny and awful, we can laugh about it later, but I’m screwed because I had to shit REALLY BAD on the way home and took a shit on the side of the road and it looks like I probably dropped my wallet out there and I have no idea where ‘there’ is because I was in so much pain that I didn’t pay attention, so I’m SCREEEEEWWWWED!!”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he chuckles. 

“Look at you, using nature!”

“I know, and I’m NEVER doing it again – please, just HELP ME!”

He slowly calms me down from a ledge and tries to help me remember where I took the shit.

“Do you remember the street?”

“Nope.”

“Do you remember any stores you passed?”

“Nope.”

“Did you go down any hills?”

“No clue.”

“Which town were you in?”

“I wasn’t paying attention.”

All I am able to tell him is that I didn’t take any turns from the point when I left his house to the spot where I pooped, I only passed through two lights, I saw those bright sharp-turn signs at one point, and I took my shit by a large bush-tree.

He tries insisting that I remember more, that I’m just panicking; I need to “focus.” 

As he’s talking to me, a familiar feeling starts building up in my gut again…

You gotta be fucking kidding me… 

“Um, I hate to cut this short, but I need to shit again – like RIGHT NOW!” I tell him.

“Alright, but when you’re done…”

“No seriously, I need to go…”

“Yes, but take a minute to close your eyes and think…”

“You don’t understand: it’s happening AGAIN – right NOW!”

I hang up and run to the bathroom. (Ah, toilets… God Bless America, am I right?)

After I finish, I call my boyfriend back. He asks me to repeat the things I remember. I tell him, and then I start to panic again when I realize I have no gas and no money to buy it with; and I had to work in the morning.

He tells me, “Look for any spare change you have in your coat pockets – you should be able to get a couple bucks worth of gas from that. And while you do that, I’ll drive out and see if I can find your wallet.”

“Yeah, right – good luck, but I’m sure you won’t find it. There’s no way…”

He says, “Don’t worry, I’m pretty good at finding things.”

Pshhh, yeah, okay…

So we hang up and I scrounge around for change. I manage to find five bucks in quarters, so I run past everyone in my house (all of whom, by the way, are asking me what’s wrong), get in my car, and say the rosary that my car has enough gas to get me to a gas station.

Amen, I (somehow) make it.

I remember the gas station clerk saying “Oh, shit!” as I drop a wad of change on the counter.

“Yeah, been one of those nights,” I tell him.

After I get gas, I go home and do another search of my car just in case. Nothing. So I go inside and run back to my room. My mom calls out from her room, “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Um, I lost my wallet and my boyfriend’s trying to help me find it.”

“Oh no! Did you lose it at a gas station?”

“Um… Yeah… A gas station…”

I close my bedroom door because I’m too anxious to answer anyone else’s questions or explain what REALLY happened.

My phone rings; it’s my boyfriend. I brace myself for the bad news I was already expecting.

I’m gonna have to request new cards, who knows how long it’s gonna take to get my driver’s license replaced, oh no – not my Texas Roadhouse gift card!!

“Hey,” my boyfriend says. “Sooooo, I got some good news and some bad news…”

“You couldn’t find it, but you found my shit,” I guess. “I TOLD you! I’m screwed!”

“Uh, no… I found your wallet.”

HOLY SHIT!!!!

“Seriously?? Oh my gosh! How the hell…”

“The bad news is that some of your cards are either broken in half or shattered,” he tells me.

“Oh no… Are they all there?”

I have him list all of the cards he found. 

Holy shit, he found all of them…

“The good news is that your one debit card is fine, and so is your driver’s license.”

WHAT ARE THE FRICKIN’ CHANCES????

So the overall damage was pretty mild. Most of the cards were either just bent or cracked in half and still semi-useable until I could replace them. 

I stop mid-celebration when I remember something. “Wait… The Texas Roadhouse gift card… Did it make it??”

He gets quiet as he checks. “Yup!”

I pump my fists in the air. “Good! Because I’m going to treat you to a nice juicy steak after this!”

(Wanna hear something really ironic? I later discovered that the phone holder for my car WAS adjustable… Which means my phone CAN fit while still in my wallet…) 

Well, that’s the end of my shit story. Now that it’s over (with a happy ending), I’ve been retelling it to everyone with a chuckle.

No guilt, no shame. Just a helluva drinking story… 

So what’s the lesson here?

Depends.

Maybe it’s, “Don’t eat kung pao or cheese before a long trip.”

Or maybe, “Always keep a toilet paper roll in your car.”

Possibly, it’s, “Know where you shit.”

But most likely, it’s, “When you really gotta shit, just do it at your boyfriend’s dad’s house and ask for forgiveness later…”