September 08, 2005
Internal Issues
The morning of our locks tour in Seattle, I walked to the nearby Plaid Pantry to get coffees for our group. The evening before, we had been at a keg party and went out after that to catch the end of someone's birthday party. We were all good-n-buzzed but not sloppy drunk or anything like that. Anyway, I was feeling a bit hung over but mostly functional, hence I found the the motivation to brave the walk down a portion of Queen Anne Hill and back up again with a tray containing four large coffees.
The walk down was uneventful, in fact, it was quite pleasant on what was a crisp Seattle morning with a spectacular view of downtown and Seattle Center. Entering the Plaid Pantry, I knew something was about to go wrong. The dim, yellow tinted flourescent lighting gave the store an eerie glow. I suddenly had an ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach. In retrospect, this would have been an opportune time to bail and embark on the return trip. However, I opted to forge ahead with my mission - damn the torpedoes!
Initially, I wandered about the store aimlessly looking for vaguely healthy breakfast snacks. Finding nothing but donuts, I eventually gave up and made my way to the coffee stand. It was a typical convenience store coffee stand equipped with pump-style coffee butlers. No cause for alarm. As I approached, the aroma of coffee grew stronger and, oddly, I found myself thinking of the heavy keg beer we drank the night before. The flourescent lighting flickered almost imperceptibly and there was that feeling in the pit of my stomach again.
I tested the weight of each coffee butler and discovered only one still contained coffee. I grabbed a cup and began the dubious process of extracting four large coffees from a single butler. I pumped the top of the butler, forcing the aromatic liquid into my waiting cup. The vapor wafted up and into my nasal passage, permeating my sinus cavity, working its magic. A warm sensation ran through my body and I vaguely remember thinking, "Wow, this must be strong coffee."
With the first cup filled and capped, I started on the second. Again the hot, pressurized liquid blasted into my waiting cup, frothing and steaming its way toward the rim. I think this was about the time I realized that I sweating but no matter, I would soon be outside in the crisp morning air. Then it happened. The coffee ran dry. Now, pump-style coffee butlers don't just run dry, they make a loud, wet, hollow, gurgling noise not unlike the the one my bowels made in response.
Holy shit, Batman! I needed a bathroom in a big, fat, fucking hurry!
I looked to my left to find a door bearing a sign that read, "Sorry, no public restrooms." Panicked, I looked to my right to find the cashier, a woman in her fifties and appeared to be of Native American descent, eyeing me from behind the counter. I looked back at the door. Back at the cashier. Utlimately, I had no choice but to plead my predicament with the cashier.
Now, I am certainly not an ugly person but I am also not a member of the Beautiful People Club. That is to say, I cannot flash a pearly white smile, flex my pecs and expect women (or anyone else for that matter) to fall under my spell and do whatever I wish. A play to the cashier's sympathy was my only hope.
I approached the counter with my cup and a half of coffee. "Hi. Um, I'm sorry but I have a bit of a problem and I desperately need to use the restroom," I explained in the calmest tone I could muster. The cashier looked at the sign explaining the store's restroom policy. She looked back at me, eyed me up and down briefly as if to gleen some new information regarding the validity of my claim. I tried to look as pathetic and harmless as I possibly could. After what seemed an incredibly long moment of silence the cashier said, "We don't have a public restroom."
"Yeah, I read that but this is knd of an emergency. Do you think you could..."
"Sorry. No public restroom."
"You don't understand. I really need to use the restroom," I continued, drawing out the really to emphasize the desperation of my situation.
"Sorry."
"Couldn't you..."
"No."
"Thanks alot," I said but this time with as much contempt as I could muster. "Here, enjoy these coffees," I added and walked out the door with as much composure as is possible when squeazing one's butt cheeks together.
I have heard that every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I wonder if the coiner of that phrase was looking up Queen Anne Hill at its conception. I further wonder if that wordsmith was about to loose bowel control when crafting that phrase. My guess is, not so much. Had the unknown (to me anyway) poet been in a predicament even vaguely similar to my own, I'll wager the phrase would go a little more like, "Every journey that begins with a step that nearly makes you shit a river might as well be a thousand mile journey because you probably aint gonna fuckin' make it anyway."
My bowels protested mightily to that first step and every single step after that, I might add. I developed a gait that seemed like it just might work. However, imagine a prisoner wearing ankle shackles being forced up a hill against their will by repeated cattle prods to the small of the back. Got that image? Well, that is the best way to describe my gait as I walked up that goddamned hill.
Inexplicably, I found myself at my destination with clean underwear. I stood outside the door wondering what I would say when I entered without the coffees and breakfast snacks I was so gung-ho to retrieve. Thinking of coffee was not good as it caused my guts to do some sort of Tony Hawk maneuver that forced me to barge through the door.
Of course, I entered the apartment to find everyone not only awake but looking at me expectantly. "There you are," said one as I stood frozen clamping my spincter closed, "I thought you were going for coffee."
"Well, it was a pretty fruitless trip," I managed to say, "They ran out of coffee." Now this was not a lie, I just opted to leave out the part that they ran out of coffee and it somehow resulted in my spontaneous contraction of dysentery. "We can pick up some coffee on the way," I offered, "Guess I better use the restroom before we take off." With that I walked toward the bathroom desperately trying to look normal.
Ahhhhhhh ... Sweet, fucking release!
When I say release, I mean R-E-L-E-A-S-E! If you have ever heard the MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS) let loose a salvo then you have an idea of what it sounded like at that moment in these poor, unsuspecting folk's bathroom.
Okay, sorry, that was a very inside, very navular reference but please bear with me. I thought it might be funny if somebody Googled, "Weapons systems," and found this blog entry. And just in case you're wonderin'... Yeah, I was in the Navy. So what!?!?
Anyway, as I was saying, I thought my skull might implode due to the sudden loss of internal pressure. But at that moment I feared not death. If death came at that particular moment, my corpse would be discovered with an ecstatic, possibly orgasmic, expression permanently etched in rigor upon my face. In fact, the problem with not dying was dealing with the aftermath.
After a couple false starts (or finishes, however you want to look at it), about three rolls of toilet paper and 4,500 gallons of water were expended in support of the subsequent hazardous material containment operations at a cost of untold hundreds of cents. I think FEMA was placed on emergency standby. The job was ugly but I did, "Git 'er done," to quote a big, fat idiot.
I emerged from the bathroom feeling like a new man. I was pleased to discover no one was looking at me as if I had just killed a kitten, nor had anyone asphyxiated. It seemed I had pulled it off like a pro. I was in. I was out. Nobody was the wiser.
We packed into the car and headed for Lake Union to catch our tour boat. After finding a place to park we walked to a nearby convenience store gas station to get the coffee we all so badly needed. Inside, we looked around a bit and again found no healthy snacks so we opted for packages of donuts. We got our coffees, this time with no objection from my bowels, and headed for the cash register.
Standing near the register was one those guys you always see hanging out at convenience stores. You know the type, somewhere between punk-ass and homeless and always interested in talking to you. Well, this guy looks my way and I an thinking, "Great! What the fuck dies this want?"
"Dude, Did you find a bathroom?" He asked.
"What?" I asked, vaguely wondering about his word choice.
"A bathroom man, did you find one?"
"I wasn't looking for the bathroom. I was looking for donuts."
"Nah, dude! At the Plaid Pantry. I was in there."
The room did a Matrix style pan-up-spin-360-degrees-pan-down. There he was still standing there looking at me with a shit-eating grin on his face. Of course he was there, why the fuck wouldn't he be there? This guy probably stops in every convenience store within Seattle city limits over the course of a day. And our schedules seemed to be happily synchronized.
"Yeah, dude, that lady was cursing your name when you walked out without those coffees. Ha! Ha! Ha! She was like, that mother fucker! That son-of-a-bitch! Ha! Ha! Ah, man it was funny! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
I'm not really sure why I was embarrassed by this whole morning. I think it had much to do with not really knowing half of our group. Normally, I would have gotten a kick out of telling this story right after it happened. But this time, I wanted to keep it to myself. I thought the gig was up for sure.
Fate was on my side this day. Convenience Store Guy just kinda let it go after his little laugh at my expense. I was able to play it off (or so I think I was) by giving the folks in my group a variation on the, "Ya got me! Must be crazy," look. I am hoping to never run into that guy again but knowing my luck not only will I run into him again when I move to Seattle but he will remember me and pick up the story right where he left off. For all I know he followed me up Queen Anne Hill laughing his ass off the entire way.
Funny Stuff Posted By eBill at 12:00 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://baltiblogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/6934
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Internal Issues:
