One such morning, while downing my third cup of coffee, I whirled around my office juggling multiple tasks that were keeping me at my post. Simultaneously, I played a game that had become part of the morning ritual. Like a well orchestrated ballet, I had made my way up and down the ground floor stairs several times, making a short stop by the second level bathroom where I deposited my favorite new magazine on the floor next to the toilet. It would wait there for me to finish checking messages, open yesterday’s mail and do a little online banking. I would peruse articles as I squeezed out the morning turd. The stage was set. Maybe after the initial fireworks had passed I would make a couple of personal phone calls: my dad, and friend Kelly. I would take a moment for myself trying to muffle the revealing echo that occurs while one talks on the phone and sits on the crapper at the same time.

At this time, my game began to get serious. My bowels started to clench and gurgle as I sat downstairs at my desk in anticipation of the pending event. Meanwhile launching programs and making tidy piles of paperwork while I shifted from cheek to cheek holding back the explosion of poo that would officially signal the beginning of my day and call to a close the morning rituals. I had mastered the last minute sprint up the stairs to the waiting toilet and well-placed reading materials. I would at the last second burst through the transom while spinning to a perfect sitting position as pants dropped. My well timed turds breaking surface like a squad of Chinese divers shot from a machine gun. The closer I got to the edge of safe shitting, the better I felt about my day. It was as if I had stolen back a few seconds of my life. A true adrenaline rush. The ultimate dare. And really, what was the worst that could happen?

This particular day, things really started to build. My work load and my other load were a bit more than usual. To add to this momentum, I had recently switched to a house blend coffee in replacement of my previous pound of grounds, the Espresso roast. The mellower house blend made me feel less anxious, even-keeled, more in control, so I pushed it even closer to the edge. I squinched and choked back on the urge to turd with a Ghandi-like inner calm. Like some kind of omni-potent reptile wrangler, I reared back on the all familiar turtle head with unusual calm and mastery. But this morning something was different.

This was not the familiar old turtle I had taunted on countless such occasions. Rather this beast felt more like a tortoise with a major crack habit, or perhaps two very angry turtles side by side, running out of breath and fighting over one another to stick their heads out of my ass at the same time. I held my focus strong fingering my keyboard with building panic. My toes tapped, I began to wretch and shift until my deepest instincts of animalistic need took over. THIS THING MUST COME OUT!!! I fled up the stairs in a complete panic. Every muscle in the lower half of my body fighting to propel me at the speed of light while holding tight the most evil beast that lurked within. With what seemed to be a sonic boom, up the flight of stairs, pants opening and dropping with the urgency of a rape victim, I leaped up the final eight steps while undoing my belt and spinning a lightning fast 180, my pants literally exploding off of me as I realized the worst.

I fucked up real bad. I had waited far too long. This beast was new and unknown, its powers were incomprehensible. I knew I had a problem, a real bad problem before my ass even hit the porcelain. I was in deep shit and had at the least mushed poo all over the inside of my ass cheeks. Most actually, I had completely shit my pants. As I sat there in shame and evacuated my bowels, water lapped up to tickle my mush-covered bung and around the toilet bowl like my own personal tsunami. Along with the rush of fouled water and the emptying of myself, the hollows within filled simultaneously with guilt and shame, and the overwhelming funk-stench of human fecal matter exposed to open air at close proximity. I had, without a doubt, shit my pants in a big, bad way.

I sat their like a stunt double from a movie starring a single cup; full of guilt, shame and of course smeared with my own feces. I felt sick about it, a fool playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse, trying to beat father time resulting in what I realized was the only possible outcome. After I filled the bowl, I surveyed the real damage. Perhaps my emotions had taken over and gotten the best of me. A few quiet moments later, I realized that this was not the end of the world. No one would know. I did not do this thing regularly as an adult anyway. I would be more careful next time. It was an honest mistake really. Between sobs I managed a nervous laugh as I realized that the economy brand of toilet paper I had armed myself with would not hold up to the task at hand. I needed a shower, some fresh underpants and everything would be back to normal. So up the stairs I went to the other bathroom, the one with the shower.

Along the way, I grabbed a pair of boxers from the dryer. I knew that they were clean but sniffed them anyway. The freshness of fabric softener and dryer sheets lit my nose like a comforting angel. With a little hot water and gentle scrubbing, all of my sins would be forgiven. I stood in the shower like a dog getting washed, hunched-legged and nervous, but relief poured over me and my haunts disappeared down the drain. I checked myself in the mirror to make sure I got it all before toweling off. I dried my upper parts and then buffed my bum and felt all brand new. On with the boxers and t-shirt, then the socks. I am a particular guy and have a healthy ritual of dressing that requires things be put on in a certain order.

I pulled up my jeans as I started to recall how far along my day I had gotten before it had happened. I was washed over with a few recalled feelings of terror and shame as these images danced once again through my head. A crack of light struck me. Fear gutted me, a cold wet smearing feeling came over me and up my unsuspecting virginal leg skin as I hoisted up my 501′s. One of the turtles of terror had been safely disposed of, tossed into the trash with my ruined underpants. But his evil twin had outwitted me and hid silently in the leg of my jeans lurking and laughing in wait to avenge his fallen twin. This time defiling me for a second, bloodcurdling cold trip in unnatural fashion, defying all laws of physics and gravity as it smeared its way up my leg. Its cold mushiness and girth bringing me to a new depth of inner conflict and deepest shame. I was beyond salvation, destined to scribe this dark and luciferous tail in the annals of cyberspace for the feec-hungry hoards. The lowest form of readership. The horror. The horror. The horror. Beware timesavers and chasers of the economy as nature never forgets and father time never loses!