Hypothetically speaking, this would not be good.

I’m not saying this happened to me or anything, but it would be both supremely disturbing AND frustrating if it did. Let’s put you into a “situation” for a spell.

Let’s say you’re really hungover. And I don’t mean that weak-ass “I think I got a little heady-ache here, and I feel a bit more tired than normal” type of hungover. I mean you’re bro-ken. Drunk-when-you-woke-up style. Broken. Busted up in all the wrong places. Your pounding kidneys have morphed into what would best be described as “pain tissue” that lights up and burns like a mutha whenever you so much as think, your butter-yellow eyes are both dried up AND bulging out of your skull (you are constantly trying to reconcile this impossibility with physics and the human body as you understand it), you have a confusing limp in your left leg which you are convinced is caused by vodka poisoning, and the sound of your office’s air conditioner is nothing less than atomic-bomb-deafening. THAT is how hungover you are. Fuck you, you are really hungover goddamnit. Jesus H Christ… and it sucks donkey nards to be at work in such a condition.

But the best part about your hangover is where this hypothetical “situation” is trying to meander. Apparently, in your drunken stupor the night before, you ate a slice of pizza from, let’s say, a hell-spawn street-pizza vendor named Hoek’s outside of a raccoon infested pool hall ironically named “The Ritz”. [again, regardless of how detailed this description may get, it is all in fact: hypothetical, and it is YOU we are talking about here, anyway] And that slice of devil pie was topped with nothing other than yellowish sticks of oily broccoli, limp-dick mushrooms, vulcanized post-mozzarella product, and probably some dirt for good measure. You chewed that in the same mouth you kiss your mother with, and then dropped it into that vat of sloshing beer-booze you call your stomach. Then you went home and slept while that concoction marinated.

It has grown strong in the night. It has gained a most foul odor, and has the power to move cubic feet of air in painful bursts. Now it wants out of you, and plans to kill the host in a sea of misery and discomfort in the process.

You figure that a trip to the bathroom is not only warranted, but will be a nice rest from the 800,000-decibel air conditioner. On your staggering walk down the hall to the restroom you note two things: 1) the air conditioner in the hallway is jacked up too, and 2) that vodka-broccoli broth is not fucking around anymore, it’s about to make a gangbuster’s appearance if you don’t get to a controlled environment quick.

Your only hope is the fourth-floor restroom, as there is no time to choose another floor if you deem those receptacles unsavory. Your prior knowledge of this particular restroom does not leave you with any real feelings of hope. There are only two toilets in that restroom, one of which is enclosed with a stall door that both opens inward (why do they fucking design them that way? I mean, in order to enter/exit the damn thing you have to practically climb onto the damn toilet to give the stupid door room to swing) and has a forever-busted lock. The other toilet has asthmatic water pressure, so unless you’re about to unleash a flurry of water soluble feathers, you better be prepared to hear about how “something really awful must have happened to someone in the 4th floor men’s room” while riding the elevator later in the day. Along with the “commode situation”, you are also pretty familiar with the “schedule” of your floor’s restroom: 8am-9am: two familiar managers shoes can be seen under the stall with the annoying broken handle. Never drop the kids off at the pool while he is in there, it might come up during your next review. 9am-10am: that one strange guy who is always wandering the hallway, aimlessly, takes the time out of his busy wandering-schedule to make chocolate babies. You don’t know what exactly makes up his diet, but you would guess that the breakfast he ingests to produce such a malodorous shit-storm includes: one gallon of milk, four bananas, a pound of steaming asphalt, and approximately one bail of raw wheat. There is no point in considering the rest of the day’s “schedule”, as it is almost 11am, and the job must be completed immediately.

Probability says that shit-storming wanderer-guy has already darkened one commode option. You are really sweating this unfortunate reality as your stagger picks up some speed, racing against the alien that is now moshing in your bowels. You are trying to keep your composure while passing people in the halls, trying to NOT to look like some hungover, profusely sweating, limp-legged idiot who is about to crap his own pants.

You resign yourself to the possibility that your dragging left leg may cause you to trip, just slightly, throwing you off just enough to trigger the opening of your butt-cheek blockade, causing a nasty crapped-pants-in-public situation. If this does indeed occur, you reason with yourself, then it will be acceptable to simply sit down on the floor and cry like a mother of two would cry if she just learned that she got herpes from her young lover, who just so happens to be her cousin (and she just found out about that too).

Happily, you see the restroom sign, huff it a little faster, and make it before anything stupid happens. You bust into the bathroom, already disassembling your belt… assembly. You turn the tile-walled corner to face those two menacing stalls. The one on the right is the one that lacks the ability to flush air (for god’s fucking sake), and the one on the left has the door issues. You figure that Shit-Storm MUST be aware of the problems with the right-side toilet, so he must have destroyed the one with the jacked-up door. With your pants halfway down your crack, you kick open the right-side door, take one shuffle forward, and are almost immediately brought to the verge of blasting out both ends of your body. Shit Storm has definitely visited the right stall. Man-oh-man, he must have doubled-up on that asphalt this morning. And there it was, in all of its glory, unflushed, nay: unflushable (by any toilet, let alone the one that isn’t even capable of cycling a whole bowl’s worth of water when you flush it), mocking you. Yes, it is laughing at you and your sweaty, forlorn and crinkled brow, as you kick into reverse, step over, and push open the left hand stall.

And there you witness the reason that Shit Storm decided to brave hearing about his turd from strangers on the elevator. It appears that someone emptied approximately 300 ounces of Yoohoo, mixed with what looks like cooked beef, onto the rim-side-back of the toilet/seat, and a goodly amount has been splayed on the floor and wall to your right. Normally, this type of situation would prompt you to simply back up, pull that stupid door shut, wonder what kind of truck-stop you work at, and go crap in the sink. But you are halfway into the stall already, fully committed to dropping your bomb in the next five seconds. You must conquer the Yoohoo meat sauce.

The one thing you have going for you as your pants are thrust to the one clean patch on the tiled floor, is that the water is relatively fresh. That means two things: 1) this fucking toilet can still flush and 2) it fucking did flush because there is no Yoohoo INSIDE it that would no doubt: splash up onto your pink ass when you released the hounds of hell. You count both of these lucky stars, sad as they may be, as you brace yourself to hover above the crime scene. Right arm: against stall wall, propped up on the toilet paper holder. Left arm: against other stall wall, but pointed up, reaching to the top of the wall to avoid touching any of the Yoohoo that is spattered below. Right foot: tending the pants that are practically balled up on the 12x12 island of clean tile in front of you. Left foot: forward, against that goddamned broken-lock, worthless excuse for an inward-swinging stall door of idiocy to keep anyone else from barging in and possibly crapping in your lap or peeing in your face.

And then it begins. What a mighty, mighty relief you feel. The rank smell, the awful sounds, the dripping sweat… all fade from your consciousness as you purge, hovering above the toilet from Trainspotting. A smile graces your face as you complete the mission. Then you delicately place your left foot back into your trousers, release your death grips from the stall walls, re-clothe, and pull open the door to depart.

While washing your hands, you look in the mirror and see that the sweating has stopped, and there is more color in your complexion than there was this morning. You marvel at how much better you feel, and then the door opens. It is your boss. He is apparently tardy for his 9am “meeting with John” but stops briefly to greet you anyway. “You look refreshed! Big night out last night?” You respond, calmly, as you start to realize he is headed for the left stall, “yeah, kind of. Kicked it with some friends, played some pool…” He interrupts, “well that sounds like fun. You still gonna be around for that 4 o’clock meeting with Bloomberg?” You towel your hands dry and head for the door. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything!” You push the door open, and jettison from the inevitable discomfort of witnessing his discovery.

You want to run like an escaped slave, far-far-far away, when you cannot remember flushing that damn toilet….

Again, this is a hypothetical situation, and we’re talking about you. Not me. Not me in any sense. But I do feel much better. Thanks for asking. I look forward to hearing about this, hypothetically, at my next review.