Bombs away!

Part of traveling a lot for a living means you are susceptible to uncomfortable situations and lots of them.  Like having to sit in an airport for 6+ hours because a flight has been delayed or because you've finished early and there is no earlier flight to catch.  Or maybe you booked a hotel in a new area and it's a dump but you just have to suck it up and get some rest.  Or maybe, just maybe it's the worst of all situations...having to take a dump in a public bathroom.

The public dump is something I try to avoid at all costs.  There is nothing more uncomfortable than having to hover over a toilet and drop cable while others are raining down brown of their own.  Public bathrooms are dirty, smelly, and just not somewhere desirable to take a crap.  They can be entertaining sources of laughter though, like when you're trying to pinch a loaf and the guy in the shitter next to you is farting out some machine gun diarrhea.  The sound of farting always cracks me up, even more so when it's accompanied by a stressful moan or sigh of relief.

I've compiled a list of the worst public places to take a dump.  Why?  Because I'm stuck at an airport for 6 hours and need to entertain myself and fart/poop stories are just plain hilarious.  Plus, just before I left for the airport I felt last night's dinner and post dinner bourbon fighting like a UFC battle was going on in my stomach and made sure to drop my payload in the comfort of my hotel room.  Veteran move.

The Convention Center Dump - Seems like every time I need to take a leak while working a convention I enter the bathroom only to hear someone annihilating the toilet and the air with a stink bomb.  I've been able to avoid this dump, choosing to hold it in for hours if necessary as these bathrooms are usually filthy.

The Fast Food Dump - Once I was on a business trip driving thru the middle of the country when I knew I needed to take a shit at the first opportunity I could.  I could feel "the wave" in my stomach and knew I wouldn't be able to hold out for long so I stopped at a Wendy's and tore that place up.  It was all sorts of awful.  To make matters worse, the toilet was broken and wouldn't flush.  Well, that didn't make matters worse for me, so to speak.  Actually, I got a good laugh out of it as I pictured some poor soul who would have to take care of the nuclear fallout I'd left behind.  The fast food dump is usually avoidable because usually where there is a fast food joint off the highway, there is also a hotel and hotel bathrooms are usually pretty clean.  Yeah, you know you'll thank me for that tip someday.

The Rest Stop Dump - Another doozy.  Rest stop bathrooms are poorly maintained and/or have heavy traffic.  As a result, you're gonna be in for harsh conditions and a total lack of peace and quiet should the brown bandit come to pay you a visit on the turnpike.  I was 22 years old and on my first ever business trip with a female coworker who was in her early 30s going to visit a client.  I don't know what the hell I ate the night before but about 45 minutes into the 2hr drive it wanted to exit thru the back door in a hurry.  She was driving so I said I had to take a leak and we stopped at a rest stop where the bathrooms look like an elevated trailer home.  I'm in there at least 15 minutes just punishing the toilet with ass fury.  Every time I think it's clear to go, another round of explosive diarrhea hits and I gotta stay a little longer.  I eventually get back to the car and said I got sick and was throwing up.  I know, totally wussed out.

The Port-O-Potty Dump - Can't say this has ever happened to me and if it has it was so horrific I erased it from my memory.  Really nothing good about this one.  You're dumping into a hole with other dumpage and piss everywhere and you're all alone, wallowing in your own shame for having to shit in a port-o-potty.

The Office Dump - "Hey look, there goes the office shitter."  A comment you hope is never about you.  When I first started a job I was scared to death to take a crap at work because the bathroom was just off the main hallway near all of the offices and cubicles.  It basically sat in the middle of everything.  It also had really thin walls as I learned when one of the larger women in the office started a fiber diet and could be heard farting shit out of her ass continuously, reducing me to tears from laughter while I was on the phone with a customer.  The only positive was it was a solo bathroom.  One day I finally get the courage to drop a bomb at work and everything goes rather smoothly - little to no farting, quick enough, and I watched the flush and made sure everything went down.  I was relieved but it didn't last long.  About 2-3 hours later, I hear a commotion in the hallway and the owner is talking to the janitor.  The toilet has overflowed and there is doody all over the bathroom floor.  I'm shocked because I watched it go down so I'm pretty sure someone had to have gone in there after me and tore up the joint.  Even so, it took awhile to get the courage to do that again.  However, with this job also came my first personal office which gave me freedom to bury a fart in my chair every now and then should nature call.  Well, one day I've got the hot, rotten egg farts and I'm carefree farting up a storm in my office.  All of a sudden, I hear this conversation in the hallway: "Did someone burn eggs in the toaster over or something?  I don't know?  It's either that or a something died in the ceiling over the weekend."  Whoops.

The Stadium Dump - This is another one I have thankfully managed to avoid but apparently many can't because it seems like every game I've attended in my life there is always someone having a blowout in the bathroom.  I remember one time I was at Fenway and some guy was taking a very audible dump with loud farts and I said, "Show that turd who's boss, buddy!" and everyone in the bathroom cracked up.  Never gets old.

The Airport Dump - I'll never forget my first one.  My sales rep and I had taken down a mean spicy meat lovers pizza at an Italian joint one night and the next day had an early morning meeting before I had to get to the airport.  That 'za was knockin on the door mid-meeting, so bad that I started sweating.  My rep got me to the airport quickly but I had to hit the shitter before I checked in or else I was probably going to crap myself.  I soon gave birth to a hot, spicy, pile of brown lava in the handicrap stall.  It smelled so bad that someone who entered the bathroom while I was unloading said, "GEEZ!" and literally coughed and gagged.  I laughed myself to tears.  In fact, I'm laughing myself to tears just writing this recollection of it.

The 40,000ft Dump - This one has got to be the worst.  Airplane bathrooms are usually filthy and also impossible to be comfortable in even when you're standing taking a leak.  Dropping trow is even more uncomfortable.  They have a "hover handle" in there to help but it's still tough.  It must suck to be a woman and have to hover just to take a piss on a plane.  In September of 2009, my 31 year streak of never having to shit in an airplane came to an end.  It was a horrific experience that I tried to hold off until I couldn't take it anymore.  I unleashed my fury on that flight with a good 10 minute diarrhea fest.  When I emerged, a line of people who had to use the bathroom had formed and the smell trailed me as I made my way back to my seat.  At first I was embarrassed but embarrassment turned to pride as I realized that these people were forced to cower in the presence of my ass power.

I'm sure there are plenty more public places that are awful to take a crap but I'm sitting in a restaurant at the airport typing and laughing so badly to myself that I've got to end this.  I hope this brought you as many laughs as it did me and may your dumps always be in the comfort of your own home or hotel room.

JUST CHARGE ME ALREADY!!!

Why is it that some businesses take so long to push thru the transactions when you make a credit card purchase at their establishment? This is so effing annoying to me. Why? Well, I like to pay off my entire credit card balance each month and I like to track how much that payment is each month. When businesses take forever to push the purchase thru, the transaction isnt recorded on my account when I want to pay my bill and thus jumps over to the next month. Since Citibank is lame and wont let me pay more than my current balance, even when I know charges are out there waiting to be added, there is nothing I can do.

There are 2 reasons this annoys me:

1.) I have been spending a shitload of money this year. Probably about double what I spent last year on a monthly basis. Sure, Im having way more fun but Im trying to get myself back into saving mode as I have a few things Id like to save for. When charges get carried over to the next month, I dont get to "start fresh" with a chance at keeping my card spending low for that month by starting with a zero balance. Its a mental thing I guess and something thats not easy to explain. Just one of my many quirks.

2.) As a business owner, wouldnt you want your money as fast as you could get it? I just made about $400 in purchases since last Tuesday. NONE of these have shown up on my card yet. One was from an online retailer. The other was a restaurant here in Miami. The online guy has shipped my order and Ive already eaten the food from the restaurant and crapped it out by now.

I guess I could add Citibank being lame and not letting me prepay balances that I know are on the way to the list of why this annoys me. Bank of America let me do that but they dont give me AA miles for my purchases. Instead they have a lame reward program so it was bye bye to BoA. This may be the first case of someone wanting to be charged for goods and services but, unless the transactions have been forgotten or wiped clean, Id like to be charged. Dammit.

Damn kids! At least they made me reminisce...

This was supposed to go up Tuesday but I got busy...

Last night around 10 or 11pm, there were a few of us sitting in the Courtyard of my condo building enjoying some wine as we do a few times a week when 3 kids came and jumped in the pool. I figured that they were sneaking out or something and just let it go so they could have a little fun like I did when I was that age. Well, they acted a little strange when a fellow neighbor came out of his place and they kinda left but sorta hid in the bushes to see if we cared that they were in the pool. Then they jumped back in and then got out and kinda hid over behind some bushes watching to see if anyone cared that they had been making noise in the pool. Then they left laughing. Well, I walked by the pool a little while later and noticed some strange brown substance floating in the pool and some more that had sunk to the bottom. At first, I thought it may have been the classic Caddyshack prank of the old Baby Ruth in the pool, so I fished some out with a leaf to check it out. It definitely WASNT a Baby Ruth. It was human feces. These kids took a shit, or a few shits for that matter, in the pool. We went to look for them (they came from the 2nd bldg in my complex) but they were nowhere to be found outside. Ive seen a few kids in the building but Im not sure what unit these kids came from. There were 3 of them, 2 scrawy little pukes and one that was taller with a moppy skater hair cut. I reported this the next morning so we could go about doing whatever is necessary to clean the pool. This is a disgusting act.

Now, on a "today" level, this really sucked because I like swimming in that pool. Luckily it was during the week and we had the pool drained, cleaned, loaded with chemicals, and refilled. On a "when I was that age" level though, this is downright hilarious. If I were those kids, Id be laughing my ass off for weeks. I used to be one of those punk kids. In the summer, my friends and I would go "pool hopping" and would also engage in our favorite pastime - chuckin'. Chuckin' was when we would hide in bushes, behind houses, or anywhere out of site and throw stuff at passing cars. Eggs, little crab apples, acorns, etc, all made great ammo. The best were snowballs though because they would make an awesome explosion when you nailed a car. I loved hitting the big door on a minivan because it made an awesome "boom!" Only problem with snowballs was that, if you had to run, you had to run like crazy because you left footprints which could be tracked. That or you could always run to a nearby street by yourself and just start walking down it, playing the "Im innocent" look and using the excuse that you were walking to a friends house if someone questioned you. There would always be a group of at least 3 of us and sometimes up to about 10 or more so it was always funny to see multiple projectiles nailing a car or van or truck. We were young, so we always looked out for "teenagers" aka "kids in High School that could run fast and most likely would kick our asses if we got caught." I only got caught once in my life at the age of 11. I nailed a teenager car with a water balloon and then my shoe came off in some mud while I was running which caused me to fall and made me easy prey. The kids made me wipe off their car and give my name and friends' names so they could "call our parents". Of course, being the little bastard I was I gave them all fake names and numbers haha.

I really could go on for ages about this game we would play. The adrenaline rush was awesome. This game lasted for years. In fact, after me and a roommate lost about $350 each one Sunday gambling on football games we went downstairs, put some snowballs in a bucket, and then chucked em at passing cars from our apartment window. I was 22 at the time hahaha. I guess in many ways, I'll never grow up. :)