Tissue Paper

I knew it was coming but I tried my best to put it off. And then I put it off too long. Normally I use the restroom (see, I don’t need to say shit or crap if I don’t want to) at work before I leave for the gym. Well, today it was time to leave and I had put off the visit to get something done before lunch. I figured it wasn’t that bad and I could workout without having any problems.

(Is it bad that I plan my restroom visits around things that I have lined up during the day? What does that say about my bodily function control?)

I got to the gym and everything was still cool. Then, in the locker room, after bending over to change my shoes and socks I realized that the time was now. Just those few motions pushed out a sizable pffft of gas. It smelled. Bad. I couldn’t lift weights without taking a poo first. Well, I could but I’d be running the risk of taking a poo while lifting weights. .
I’ve seen pictures of marathon runners who have crapped their shorts while running. This is why I don’t run marathons. That would be me.

I made my way over to the can and carefully balanced my towel on top of my water bottle to keep it off the questionable floor. I dropped my shorts and sure enough, with little to no effort a big old lincoln log popped out. Not wanting to cut my time in the gym down any I tried to pinch it off and get wiped up as quickly as possible. That’s when I noticed the toilet paper.

Now, it would be really bad if there wasn’t any paper. Nothing could be worse than that. But this wasn’t much better. Remember back in grade school when art class would come around and you’d make butterflies or flowers out of tissue paper? You know, the flimsy tissue that usually came in the gayest colors imaginable? Yeah, my butterflies were always pink, shut up. The roll of toilet paper was indeed just like tissue paper.

They don’t even make actual tissues out of tissue paper (do they?). Your normal box of Kleenex has double sided sheets with a little lotion on it. You use these double-sided tissues to blow your nose so you don’t get boogers all over your hand. And yet, here I was in the stall about to wipe one of the nastiest materials I can think of with single-ply tissue paper. Seriously nasty, I’ll admit it.

For the first “dabber” I used a good four feet of the tissue. This ended up balling up to the size of a golf ball. I shot that right in the toilet. No way my hand is going in for the first strike without the proper artillery. The second time I pulled off a good six feet and balled it to just bigger than a baseball. First wipe – ok. Second wipe – ok. Third wipe – not so good. It turns out the tissue paper was not very absorbent; it just kind of moved “it” around. Now “it” was on my hand. Thoroughly disgusted I grabbed some more tissue and got it off my hand. In the process I got some on the paper dispenser. I thought, “Fuck’em, it’s their fault in the first place.” Yeah, I left it there. I’ve done worse.

I must have wiped (smeared) for a good five minutes. When I finally thought all was good down there I flushed and headed for the sink. After I washed my hands I realized something was not good. In my effort to hurry up and cut the session down to the minimum I had cut it off too early. I still had to go. Fuck.

I went back in the stall and pushed out a couple more. Not taking note of what had happened just minutes before, yup, got it on my hand again. I can’t think of much worse than having your own warm, smelly poop right there on your finger – taunting you from underneath your finger nail. “I see you but you can’t get at me!” Not having anything to work with I (gross) used another finger nail to try to get it out. Now I had poop under two fingernails.

Knowing the battle was futile I tried to hurry up so I could go use the sink as soon as possible. I was able to get everything out with running water and soap. I looked at myself in the mirror; sweat was running down my forehead. But hey, I had survived. And I had learned an important lesson: if the paper ain’t thick, don’t take a shit. Words to live by, people. Words to live by.