poop

Looks like I’ll be headed back to Taipei in December, the more I go, the more I enjoy going. Now, I don’t want to move there or anything… but I do find myself feeling more and more comfortable each time I go. It has nothing to do with Taiwan, actually, it has more to do with building relationships with the customers and workers over there. It’s “networking,” and the value I see in that, which makes me want to go back and show my face again. Just something I see as increasing my stock, so to speak. How disgusting is it that I use phrases like “increasing my stock,” and talk about “networking,” have I bought into this religion of business-politics that much? Apathy, please save me… I care way to much about stupid stuff. Owell, I think I’m pretty well grounded – despite my yuppy-ish urge to succeed.

I remembered a funny story the other day, thought I’d write it down. Back in college, I shared an apartment with a buddy of mine. Sharaun and I were dating, and she had come over to pick me up to go somewhere – I remember that we were already running late, so we were in a rush to get going. As we were walking out the door to the car, some kid ran up, in a bathing suit and dripping wet from the pool which was close to our place, walking kinda funny and said, “Mister, can I use your bathroom?” “There’s a bathroom right around the corner in the laundry room,” I replied, knowing we had to get outta there. “Someone is in that one!” he said, a pained look on his face. I looked at Sharaun, and she shrugged. I looked back at the kid, “Please,” he said, “I only gotta go number two.” “OK,” I said as I let him in, “it’s the first door on the right.” He ran past me into the apartment and slammed the door behind him.

Sharaun and I went back inside the house and waited in the living room. A couple minutes passed, and we started getting annoyed. Five minutes passed and we were both wondering if we should check on the kid. Ten minutes, and I had had enough. I walked back and asked, through the door, “Are you OK in there?” “I’m almost done,” came the reply. Fine. I went back into the living room to sit down. Another five minutes goes by, Sharaun and I are fairly furious at this point, having lost all hopes of getting wherever we were supposed to be in time. Then, in a flash, the bathroom door flew open and the kid bolted past us and out the front door without saying a word. Caught by surprise, I looked at Sharaun – and we both knew right then and there that something wasn’t right. I rolled my eyes and headed down the hall.

I got to the bathroom before Sharaun. Before she could even reach the door and see what I had seen, I turned on my heel and sprinted to the front door. I burst through and looked frantically left and right, then took off full-steam towards the pool. The kids around the pool turned and looked as I slammed on the breaks at the gate and asked, “Were you guys playing with a kid out here, he was about…,” and proceeded to describe the kid to them. No one owned up to knowing the kid, although they must have been there with him. Frustrated, I did a quick circuit of our building, to no avail. The kid had disappeared. But, you might ask, “Why Dave? Why did you chase that poor kid? What did you see in that bathroom?” Rewind to me walking down the hall and opening that door, already scared of whatever it was that sent this kid running from my place.

The first thing I remember is a sense of utter disbelief, quickly followed by rage. The scene before me was incredible: there was poop. There was poop everywhere. Poop on the floor, poop on the wall, poop on the ceiling. There was poop in the sink, poop all over the toilet, poop on the shower curtain. The places with poop far outnumbered the places without poop. And this no regular poop, this was extra special viscous poop. It looked like someone filled several water balloons full of liquid-poop, piled them on the floor, and lit a firecracker underneath them. There was so much poop, I had to call in CSI to analyze the poop-splatter and confirm a single-butthole theory. OK, so I made up that last part – but there was seriously a stupefying amount of fecal explosion for a little kid who couldn’t have weighed more than 75lbs.

The most painful part of my discovery came as I swept my eyes across the poop-coated room and slowly realized that I would have to clean this up. It was at that moment, not even one second after first discovering the crime scene, that I took off running. Mind singularly focused on tackling that damn kid at full-sprint, dragging his nasty ass back to the apartment, and physically rubbing his nose in the disgusting mess he left like a misbehaving mutt. When I came back empty handed, Sharaun was still standing at the bathroom door in shock and disbelief. There was nothing more I could do, I got out the cleaning supplies and my rubber gloves, and suppressed my gag reflex long enough to sanitize our now-forever-tainted bathroom. Sharaun, being a trooper, grabbed some gloves and a sponge and helped out.

I committed his face to memory, just in case I ever saw him around the apartments again, and sometimes I’d even make a quick sweep by the pool when I heard kids. I never did find that kid. I hate him to this day.

I’m outta here, until next time.

Also written on this day...

• that weather where it feels like you're floating - 2018
• $100 easy dollars - 2010
• we'd smoke anything - 2009
• pumpkins in a wagon - 2008
• ghost writing - 2006
• compliance - 2005
• my brother the squad leader - 2003