TW: gross like really gross
I am a medical courier and I spend my whole night out on the road. This making eating a little tough because its not like there's a refrigerator and microwave available at all times and so its only possible to eat at certain times. Last summer, I was trying a new schedule of eating, instead of bringing a sandwich with me I would have a more full dinner while taking a lunch break at my home. On the first day I was attempting this, it was 6PM and I was already starving, and I wasn't going to be near my home until closer to 9PM, so I needed to have something to hold me over. I also didn't want to slow my route up, so I had the idea that I would go to the Burger King drive thru. I hate everything at Burger King because it gives me upset stomach and is also terrible for you and yada yada but they do sell those Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, so all I needed was a buck and I would get three cookies and that would be good enough until I got home.
So I'm in the drive thru and I ask for the cookies.
"We don't have any cookies."
Now I'm fucked. I don't wanna go on a hunt for food at someplace else and waste too much time but there's also nothing I want at Burger King. I know the burgers will wreck my insides and their fries are disgusting even by the standards of fast food, but I do see a promotion for 10 chicken nuggets for $1.49.
How bad could they be? I thought to myself.
If only I had known.
So I get and eat the nuggets. They're not good at all but they're filling and I think my problem is solved. I am near my house and decide that I'm not really all that hungry and that I'll eat my dinner when I get done with work at 11 PM or perhaps I'll save it for tomorrow if I don't really need it. I did have ten whole nuggets after all. Now its 9:30 PM and all of a sudden the sensation hits me like a sledgehammer to the gut.
I have gotta
shit.
This is a dilemma, as I am on a part of the route that is through a residential neighborhood. There's no convenience stores with public restrooms that I know of for miles. Doctors offices are all closed at this time. It's too dense an area to have any secluded places behind bushes. There's a supermarket but I don't know where the bathroom is and the long walk through the store could prove to be trouble. The best option is that my company has a location that I have a key for and I can get in there and use the bathroom, and this is especially the right choice because its closed and the building will be deserted. It's five miles away. I pinch and get a move on. I'm going perhaps a little too fast, and my heart drops when I see the police lights come on behind me. I'm now convinced that I'm going to have a catastrophic accident in front of a police officer. The cop car accelerates past me and zooms off to the site of some unknown crime. I'm an atheist but I'm convinced there was a deity looking out for me at that moment.
As I'm driving down the street towards the lab, the rumblings in my gut are becoming severe. I peel into the empty parking lot like an illegal drifter and park completely sideways. There's no time at all to actually get into a spot. There is enormous urgency in this situation but I am aware that moving fast could spell the end, so I very gingerly lift myself up out of my low car. I open the door to the building and then I have the lab door itself to unlock. As I'm trying to get the right key, I drop the whole set on the floor. I refuse to bend over to get them so instead I leave them on the ground and get the spare key from the lockbox next to the door, even if it took me a few tries to remember the right code for it.
Now I am completely convinced that I have no time left. There is only about twelve feet to go and I feel like I have made it. I attempt some kind of an awkward jog.
Bad move.
I feel the sag right away and my heart sinks for the final time. I walk into the bathroom and inspect the damage, and it is severe. Catastrophic. I had just purchased a $40 set of nice underwear that wouldn't bunch up on me while driving: completely ruined. Before inspecting my shorts, I had to deal with the underwear. In a manner reminiscent of disposing of a soiled diaper, I gingerly carried the underwear to the garbage can and then tied up the bag. I inspected every square inch of my shorts and found them to be spotless, this is to the credit of the supreme workmanship of Tommy John underwear. I have two options now, I can go home and take a shower and get new underpants and fall behind on my route 45 minutes or more or I can go commando and hope for the best. Any time I am later than 30 minutes, I have to file an explanation with my boss that will be checked against my GPS location over the whole time of the route. I don't know about you but I was not at all willing to explain to my boss how I, as a sober able-bodied adult, shit my pants. And so I cleaned up the bathroom, taking cares so that the morning crew of the lab wouldn't have any reason to ask
what happened here last night, and butt naked, I walked outside to where there is a hose for watering the bushes. I took off my shirt and at 10:00 PM I hosed myself off behind the bushes, facing only the railroad tracks. A train did pass and I can only hope that nobody on the late train to New York was looking out the window at that exact moment.
For the first time since college, I had to dress myself outdoors in the middle of the night. It was at least summertime and a pleasant 80 degrees. The rest of the night went off without a hitch, though I couldn't convince myself that there wasn't any lingering odor at all, so I timed the finish of the route so that I showed up during the break of the workers at the night lab, giving nobody an opportunity to smell the evidence of my shame that may or may not have existed. There was a girl working there at the time who I had a major crush on, so obviously I don't need gossip going around of "he smelled like he shit himself". I was 28 minutes late. My anxiety regarding the situation was so that I went back to the lab after clocking out and gave it a more thorough examination and gave the entire building the best Febreeze treatment I could. After this, I went home, showered, and thanked God for Tommy John underwear. So intoxicated with relief (and the imperial stout I had to celebrate my good fortune) I was, that I sent the following message to Tommy John support:
The week after this incident was my birthday, and I received an envelope in the mail from my brother.
It was addressed to Oops I Crapped My Pants, and it contained a Tommy John gift card.
