Honesty is the goal in my occasional diary entries here, so with no attempt to polish a turd, here’s my Wednesday morning.

I was watching a pretty good old movie, when a sudden gurgling announced that I needed to be on the toilet. At my age, toilet-time cannot be delayed, so I pole-vaulted out of my recliner. Gotta pass through the kitchen to reach the john, so I came into the kitchen, but the door to the john was closed. Which means, occupied. Faint sounds of water could be heard. Someone was in the shower.

It could be ten minutes or longer before whoever was in came out, and I did not have ten minutes. I needed to poop, immediately. For such emergencies, I own a portable indoor outhouse, which I highly recommend. Being an idiot, though, two boxes and numerous loose items were piled atop the indoor outhouse. Lifting those boxes and removing the clutter would’ve squeezed the poop right out my back door, so even my emergency toilet couldn’t help me.

Looking up down left and right, an empty plastic doohickey seemed to be my rescue. It’s box-shaped, small enough to fit between my legs but large enough to catch whatever comes out, so I lowered my shorts, and everything came out soon as I held it under my universal joint. One long plop, large, wet like pudding, and thankfully, all of it inside the plastic.

I could feel the leftovers clinging to my buttcheek walls. Much wiping would be needed, but this wasn’t my first poop rodeo. Such minor catastrophes are increasingly common as I’ve aged, so I was prepared. I reached for a nearby roll of paper towels to start wiping my ass, but as I stretched, a large plop fell from my buttcheeks onto yesterday’s underwear, which was on top of the day before’s underwear, on the floor.

Well, shit. With that involuntary plop, I realized that wiping my ass in my room would produce a plethora of plops and a mountain of shitty paper towels. A long shower seemed a wiser strategy. I’d rinse my asscrack under hot water, and also lather up and scrub the underwear I was wearing, and yesterday’s shat-upon underwear.

Bending over to pick it up from the floor, two more involuntary plops rained down, splattering a t-shirt and another pair of underwear.

Bending again to pick those up and add them to the pile, yet another plop of poop landed on a fairly nice shirt that says “Impeach and arrest Trump.”

Apparently, I’d be doing a small load of laundry in the shower.

Five minutes and a half-pound of poop had passed since I’d tried to go to the bathroom. Maybe the bathroom was empty now? Opening my door again, I stepped into the kitchen, and — hooray, the bathroom door was open, so the toilet and shower were available. But anti-hooray, my flatmate Dean was in the kitchen

“Hi, Doug,” he said cheerfully, looking at me as I held that plastic doohickey, containing a large and moist poop, and on top of that poop, two pair of poopy underwear, a poopy t-shirt, and a poopy “Impeach and arrest Trump” shirt.

“Did you see that ball game last night?” Dean began. If you’re new to my rumblings and grumblings, let me briefly introduce Dean: he’s 70-something, and he’s chronically, unstoppably extroverted. Whenever he sees me, he wants a conversation, though he never has anything interesting to say.

I daydream of murdering Dean, because I’m as introverted as he’s extroverted, and he never, never, never shuts up, and never lets me pass with merely a nod. No, always he wants to talk, and always I don’t.

This morning felt different, though, so I stopped and stood on the linoleum — holding a half-pound of shit in the plastic doohickey, under two shitty underwear and two shitty shirts. “Yeah, hell of a game,” I said. “Extra innings.”

At that, Dean launched a thorough round-up of yesterday’s baseball, as I stood and listened and waited. After several paragraphs the stink of my shit arrived at his nose. His eyebrows folded, and then his whole face scrunched. “Ugh,” he shuddered, “what’s that smell?”

“That’s shit, Dean. I’m an old man, and I had an accident. I was headed for the shower. Do you mind?”

“Uh, go right ahead.” Dude looked about to barf, which is the only way our conversation could’ve gone better, but if he barfed it was after I’d gone into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

I dropped the clothing into the bathtub, banged the plastic doohickey against the toilet, and flushed most of the poop. Then I added the underwear I’d been wearing to the pile in the bathtub, and took a long, stinking shower, giving scrub-attention to my butt, and washing and wringing out all my shat-upon clothes. Also rinsed the plastic doohickey.

When I came out of the shower, I was again holding the doohickey with clothes piled upon it, but now none of it stank.

Dean was, of course, still in the kitchen. “Hey, Doug,” he said, and wanted to talk about incontinence, but I ignored him, came back to my bedroom, and slammed the door.

The clothes, cleaned and squeezed, are now drip-drying on hooks in my room. The plastic doohickey is none the worse for what it’s been through. And for next time, I’ve cleared the clutter off my emergency toilet.

10/28/2026

itsdougholland.com
← PREVIOUS          NEXT →