I have friends, as well as a few relatives, who occasionally feel the need to update me on their bowel movements. I’m not sure how I became the go-to guy for such things, but a good number of people believe I want to know about their remarkable shitventures. Of course they’re right, but that’s beside the point.
Earlier this week, for instance, someone sent me a series of emails documenting their two-day battle with constipation. He was actually forced to leave his job, because of it. Here are a few lines from one of his early messages:
Tuesday afternoon I was walking around with my butthole agape. And I mean stretched open, to the approximate size of an Eisenhower dollar. The turd was at the gate, but would not budge.
He said he spent a half-hour on the toilet at work, twitching and shaking and sweating, with not even a tiny seahorse to show for it. He had a powerful urge to go, but it felt like there was a jagged sandstone lodged in there. He was unable to perform his duties at work that day, due to the shit blockage, and went home.
But in the final email there was resolution. Here’s how it ended:
…funk throughout the house, and a spattered bowl above the water line. I don’t think this is over. It’s only just begun. Thank God for Dulcolax.
I appreciated his grunt-by-grunt account, and it caused me to start thinking… During my entire life there was only one instance when I MIGHT have been constipated. I qualify it, because I’m still not fully convinced.
I was twelve years old, or so, out delivering newspapers. Without warning it was like an invisible man drove a sword through my midsection. I don’t know if someone was playing with a voodoo doll somewhere, or what. But it was the kind of pain that takes your breath away. And by the time I made it to my grandmother’s house I was crying, literally sobbing because it hurt so much.
My granny asked what was wrong, and disappeared into the bathroom. A few seconds later she came out with a box that looked like it was from the shelf of an 1880s general store. It was some kind of pill called Black Draught.
“What’s that??” I shouted. Black Draught? What in the double-digit hell?!
She swore it would help me, without really answering my question, and I swallowed two of them. And promptly fell asleep… Weird stuff, man. When I woke up, the pain was gone, and never returned.
My dad – with great glee – told me that Black Draught is a laxative, and it became an often repeated family story: the day Jeff came home crying because he had a turd caught sideways. Everybody just laughed and laughed and laughed. Yes, it’s important to have a strong support network…
But the thing is, I never made any urgent trips to the bathroom. I never shit myself silly, or anything of the sort. So, I’m not convinced. I still don’t know what happened that day, and if those ancient turdbusters had any effect whatsoever. They probably expired in 1947.
And other than that questionable episode… I’ve had no problems with constipation. Not once. Coffee and beer and water (three of my favorite things) have a way of keeping stuff moving. Ya know?
But what about you? Do you have any experience with a blockage, or laxatives, or anything along those lines? Please tell us about it in the comments. You know, because I’m the go-to guy for such things.
And it’s great to have this website back, so I can continue to catalog my important works. Heh.
I’ll see you guys again soon.
Thanks for everything!
Now playing in the bunker
Treat yourself at Amazon: US and Canada
You may have shit yourself silly while you were passed out and poor Grandma had already cleaned everything up.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…..
I’m just the exact opposite at the moment. Been battling a little stomach bug and my sphincter is about to just say ‘fuck it’ and retire.
Leave it to The Qweezy Mark to be first in line for a good shit story.
Left a nice little pile next to a cactus while out running last week. Gotta feed the scorpions!
Got constipated for 4 days once…. that’sabout 12 to 16 events in arrears according to my math! Miserable….
Constipation ain’t funny.
….. it just ain’t.
Exactly Miss Q. It’s dangerous as well. Had one impaction and even the ER version of the tub o’ laxative didn’t work; had a gastroenterologist prescribe double dose of the pre-colonoscopy meds for two days before I was even normal again.
Jeff, you made me laugh, as well as most posts have today, because unfortunately I can relate on just about every level (except Mexican food).
Ate at a Mexican restaurant the night before leaving Anchorage after a nine day vacation. Right after we boarded the plane I started getting the signs, lower abdominal cramps, leading to the cold sweats and everything else that goes with the bad mexican food. Thought I’d wait till we left the airport and then head for the airplane shitter. As luck would have it, we sat at the gate for about half an hour. A really, really long half an hour. Finally I couldn’t take it any more. Got up and headed for the back when stewardess tried to stop me and make me return to my seat until we were in flight. I told her to call the FBI if she wanted, but if she didn’t get out of my way the plane would be there till they cleaned the aisle. She let me through. All the way to Seattle I was back there every 20 minutes. They should have given the poor bastard seated right next to the bathroom door a refund for the misery he had to endure on that flight. Anyway by the time we landed everything seemed cool. Next flight was alright. But while driving home from the airport at 3 in the morning I got hit with the cramps again. Ended up pulling over on the side of the road, grabbing some leftover napkins from the console and heading for the shoulder of the road. 10 feet from the highway on the shoulder of the road I left a steaming pile of oozing, runny used Mexican food. Always wondered how disgusted the highway trash picking prisoners or the first bicycle riders of the day got when they came across that. That’s my best shit story. I may think of others, but that one was about 8 years ago and still comes immediately to mind.
I have no idea about today’s gourmet frou-frou MREs, but the 1980’s version of the “Meal” Ready to Eat could cause some amazing blockages. The first crap after coming back from the field was best described as ‘softballs with fish hooks.”
Did you hear about the constipated mathematician?
He worked it out with a pencil.
Too many poop stories to share, so how about a question.
I lived in Asia for 3 years, and not once was there a solid turd in the bowl. Step on to American soil, and I could crap an I-beam.
Anyone else or any ideas why?
All that oil from stir fry.
Wouldn’t oil make you poop? Greasy food tears my digestive system up.
Ex-Lax…cleans like a black tornado.
I get constipated any time I travel. Vacation in Hilton Head this past summer…didn’t shit until the end of the week. And even then it was pebbles. Even when we go to Jamboree In The Hills in July for 4 days. By the third day I’m bloated and miserable. The lipstick’s there but the tube won’t let it go. It some how gets sucked back in even when there’s a hint of relief. I’m afraid if I try too hard, I may break a blood vessel or something.
i also get backed up when i travel, i think its the comfort level thing you know
… which brings me to my story.
Ever vagel out while shitting? I was well into my twenties so I had no idea this could even happen. I woke up a few moments later in the bathtub.
It’s never happened since.
You girls are dehydrated. Probably taking it easy with the water to keep pit stops to a minimum.
If I get constipated I just use the spoon that I always keep by the toilet.
When I find myself a bit backed up, I take a trip to Taco Hell. Never fails! Must be something about that 30% beef…
When I broke my shoulder and was on a load of pain killers and anti-inflammatories, I suffered almost a week with “Cocky Blocky”. It’s pretty painful trying to grunt and strain with a broken bone.
Same thing happened to my wife after a surgery. When all OTC remedies failed, she literally had to go in and get that bad boy with her finger.
I don’t know how women do that……
I don’t know how ANYONE does that.
I get kinks if my colon almost every time I travel too; be it airplane or long car rides.
But right after Memorial Day 2002, I had back surgery. 8 days later I was back in for surgery again because I got a post-op infection. The first surgery resulted in an overnight stay. The 2nd surgery resulted in a 12-day stay. I DIDN’T SHIT THE WHOLE TIME I WAS THERE (even though my appetite slowly came back over that period). Pain pills can do that to you. I came home and my parents were staying with me and I ate some more. I tried to go; I really tried. I gave myself enemas; I reached with fingers (my Dad’s suggestion; he would know from personal experience). The freight train would move further down the tracks but refused to leave the station.
Later that night, day 14 without a crap, I began to feel short of breath. I yelled (such as it was) up to my Mom, who was sleeping upstairs in the guest bedroom (I had a rented hospital bed just off the foyer) and she came down. A massive headache came on me, almost like pulling a ski cap down over my head, except one made of pain. My Dad finally came down and asked “howya doin’ son?”. I was shaking uncontrollably and could barely stutter out a sentence. So they called the life-squad and took me to the emergency room. They asked if I’d taken a piss lately and it dawned on me that I hadn’t. They asked if I felt like I could go now and I said yes. So go, they said. I couldn’t. They shoved a catheter in me and took out at least a quart of urine (and maybe more, who knows). See, what happened was that the gigantic log (that was probably 2 or 3 feet long) of concrete-hard CRAP had settled in my lower regions and was pinching off my urethra, which caused my bladder to back up and my kidneys began to shut down. This is not good, to say the least.
They cleared out the ER except for this little 4 and half foot tall Asian doctor with RELATIVELY tiny hands, who reached up inside me and began to pull out hunks. Then they put me in the care of two technicians, who ran a large hose up inside me and began to administer massive warm-water enemas. The debris cascading out of me sounded like gravel as it hit the bucket underneath (I had almost no dignity left by then).
Bear in mind that I’d been taking laxatives on my own for 2 days as well as prescription-strength ones days before I was released from the hospital in that 12-day stay. That comes in to play because now I’m in a private room just off the pediatrics ward, mid-morning or early afternoon the day after the trip to the ER and water-filled butt-raping. I wake to see my parents at the end of the bed. I’m just talking to them when I feel the first notion of a pending need to take a crap. I pinch (as usual) but IT HAS NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER. In seconds I am swimming in chocolate pudding (all those belated laxatives were responsible for this). So I tell my parents “I just crapped myself’. My dad says “And with that, I think we’ll go”. An attendant (male, btw) came in to clean me up and God was it a mess. He put an adult diaper on me and within 10 minutes after being back in bed that thing was brimming full too. Hell, I think it was squeezing out the sides like Play-Doh (if you wonder where all this ‘crap’ came from, just do the math on 14 days of snacks, half-meals and actual full meals). The next diaper he didn’t even bother to close up; I just lay on it in bed.
I’d had lots of pain and problems since my surgery on May 28. It wasn’t until they got all of that crap out of me that I actually began to feel better. That wasn’t the end of my travails but this particular aspect of the story is the part that supports the thesis.
Remember Jeff: You DID ask.
That was the BEST poop story … EVER!
Why do they not prescribe colace with every pain med?
Makes sense.
About halfway through the 12-day hospital stay, they gave me some horrible orange-flavored syrup that was supposed to be some kind of stool softener and/or laxative. I got another ‘hit’ of it 2 days or so before I was released. It was too late by then, I guess.
They gave me another shot of that stuff the morning after the ‘gravel excavation’. I’d say by then it was overkill.
Typically patients in my hospital get Colace and Sennkot if they’re getting pain meds. We can add Dulcolax and Mag Sulfate if we need to. Ennemas and manual disimpaction are a last resort.
I 2nd that this was the best poop story EVER. I usually never post comments (even after years of reading the wvsr) but I felt compelled to do so in this case.
the go to cure for constipation is chinese food, that always gets things moving, i do agree though constipation is nooooo joke, not too long ago i had that same feeling where it was riiiiight there but would not for the love of god come out.
Todays update (and comments) have reminded me of the heyday of alt(dot)tasteless. Sunshine, I’m laughing, must have been one hell of an ordeal.
I filled up a border crossing toilet… and the flusher was broken… Slinked out and hightailed it to the US.
I loved this story lol.
It’s funny you mentioned the stabbing and confusing pain of constipation as a kid. I remember I was sitting in class in third grade, and we had a public speaker of somesort speaking to the class. I remember sitting there and all of a sudden, that same stabbing pain you were talking about. I remember trying to listen to him droning on and on and I swear it was in slow motion. It had never happened to me, and I remember imaging that I had a large boulder resting on my intestinal track. So when I got home, I explained to my mom what was going on and she told me, ‘You’re just blocked up’, but I couldn’t poop. It’s seriously an awful feeling!
Now I seem to get it quite a bit. I usually have a fairly regular schedule, but every so often I go through a ‘drought’. I noticed it’s usually when I start eating a lot of fruit. I always thought that the more fiber you eat, the more you poop, but I was SO wrong. You’re supposed to spread the fiber out and I was just eating a bunch of fruit, eating fiber cereal, fiber bars, etc trying to ‘clean out’ and I was just ‘plugging up’. Finally a friend of mine told me about this and it all made sense.
Seahorse! HA!
White Castle usually clears this up for me. Mix that with Budweiser and you might as well just put a cot in the bathroom.
This updates title reminds me of a weirdo I knew when I was a trainee in the Army. Our barracks rooms were pretty nice, it was a 2×2. That’s a two person bedroom, with the sink in the bedroom like some hotels, and a two shower/one toilet bathroom connecting us with another two person room. The toilet in the bathroom was nearer to my bedroom, so we knew when anyone from the other side what in there.
One of the guys did strange things to that little toilet. I don’t know what it was, it became so maddening that my roommate and I would listen in on the guy while he was in there. Sometimes I think he just stood in the bathroom contemplating suicide.
We could hear him drop his trousers then shuffle around back and forth after a period of silence. It was like he through the TP across the room and went to and fro for each wipe. I just imagined that he had shit smeared to the outside edges of his sphincter flaps before he was done.
There were two shower stalls in the bathroom. He would frequently turn both of them on for long stretches of time.
Anyway, some times it would sound like he would drop a bunch of gravel or change in the toilet and flush. It was like a Santa Clause was ringing a bell in our plumbing. He would drop what must have been buckets of dimes down the drain. It’s the only thing that could make that noise. Whooooosh. Whoooooosh. Whoooosh.
Maybe they were ass pennies and not dimes.
I was looking over some of my old turds the other day and I noticed one from June of ’98 that was the spitting image of William Frawley.
I just spit wine across my screen. Thank you Ed. I needed that.
Failed to crap from the moment I left home to 10 minutes before the first PT when I left for boot camp. Roughly 4 days. End result, so to speak, was kelly green.
Miss that guy.
Off topic I know but – I just got back from the vet’s office with my cat. We thought she had a bite wound that wouldn’tt heal but the vet is pretty convinced my little baby is riddled with tumors. I have a very heavy heart
Sorry to hear about your kitty. Wish I could help. 🙁
Very sorry to hear that, Madz. I lost a great little feline pal several weeks ago, and it still hurts. I hope the vet is mistaken. All the best to you.
madz, so sorry to hear that. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your cat. I know you’ll do what you can to show your love for your friend. Get some tests and go from there.
I’m so sorry! I love kitties and put up with all sorts of insanity and quirkiness from my fatass feline. I hope things turn out okay.
Madz, I’m so sorry. I lost Max the big fat tabby last year, so I know how it is. We do the best we can for our little buddies. All the best to you and the poor kid.
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Thanks a million, everyone. Your words are very comforting. We’re taking her to another specialist but truthfully, I think it’s just a matter of time. We’re just going to give her the world right now.
By the way, you guys are absolutely GLORIOUS! Thanks for the well wishes!
VELAMINTS.. Does anybody remember VELAMINTS.. They were artificially sweetened with Zorbital (I think now they use Truvita).. For whatever reason, I could eat about 5 of these little intestinal rocket launchers.. and fart like a moose!. Loud, noisy, The kinda farts that would make a monk laugh!.. I was delivering furniture and tv’s at the time, I would buy them just to fart on the guys I worked with. One afternoon, I ate nearly an entire pack of them in about 20 minutes. Man, I was going to blast the pants cannon to new levels. I was walking into a gas station after a delivery, I needed to wiz.. and then it hit. Pain that I’ve never felt in that part of my intestines. To best tell the feeling, felt like a straw was worming thru my stomach. My buddy Mike, says.. “What are you doing, just standing there.. you going to the bathroom or not ?”… I couldn’t.. if I had took a step, moved a toe, It was going to be a chocolate explosion Hollywood couldn’t create!.. I finally walked with one stiff leg, to the bathroom. Squeezing my ass cheeks tighter with each step. Closed the door, Unbutton my pants, 1..2..3… The now famous JERK, PULL, SIT AND SHIT
!!. When it finally was over, Mike was standing outside the bathroom, laughing louder than I’ve ever heard him laugh. The sound was like I was shooting a fireman’s hose directly into the toilet. I didn’t remember screaming, Mike said I yelled out “JESUS, LORD HAVE MERCY”.. We paid for a soda, I never ate another VELAMINT. I left my underwear in the men’s room garbage can,
Yeah…sorbitol (or any other artificial sweetener that ends in -itol) will loosen up the bowels in large doses. Just ask my poor husband.
I’m diabetic, and I occasionally have sugar-free Jelly Belly’s in the house. I KNOW not to have too many at a time, sadly…hubby didn’t. HE ATE 1/2 OF A LARGE BOX !!! Took about 30 minutes…and his stomach made the most eerie gurgle sounds you have ever heard. Then the land speed record run from the living room to the toilet.
Four. Hours. Later. He finally stopped making brown rain.
Camping our way across Colorado.
After the third day of being constipated, we reached
The top of independence pass. They have a Vault
Shitter on the continental divide. The deuce I let go
Made such a loud splash the wife heard it
Outside the fiberglass shit house. Good times
if i would have come home with a stomach ache like the one you described as a kid back in the sixties..it was a dose of paragoric..(opium)..mom mixed it with a lil’ sugar and water in a glass..didn’t even need a perscription.
Black bean and rice burritos do it for me. More fiber than a sisal welcome mat.
Pooping is a regular topic of discussion with my family. My sister had a tumor at the base of her spine. During the removal, quite a few nerves had to be moved, etc. She went 12 days. In that time she had an enema and some other medical help. Nothing worked. She still talks about that like it’s a badge of honor.
My daughter was horrible to potty train. She would refuse to poop. She went 8 days. She was very, very thin and she looked about 5 months pregnant. It was not pleasant for anyone.
My dad craps at least 6 times a day. Anything less than 3 and he gets really concerned.
Peanuts mess up my gut. Last September, I was at a sales meeting in Iowa. My manager refers to me as Danimal instead of Dan. He warns other salespeople and technical engineers that occasionally travel with me not to drink with me, since I am a professional drunk, some heed the advice, some do not. I will eventually post some very embarrassing episodes that others have experienced getting loaded with me.
At this sales meeting, he pitted one of the VP’s against me in a drinking contest at a local bar. The “game” consisted of VP ordering my drinks, and me ordering his drinks, and each guy had to drink what was placed in front of him. Keep in mind that I am 5-9 and weigh 170. The VP is about 6-4 and weighs about 260.
We were mixing all sorts of nasty shit, shots of tequila followed by a bloody mary, then a hoppy 20 ounce beer followed by cognac, Jaeger Bombs, scotch, gin, more beer, and on and on until last call. It was determined to be a draw since nobody puked and we could both walk back to the hotel, barely.
For some reason, the large bowls of peanuts that the bartender continued to refill were really hitting the spot, and I kept eating them by the handful. The next morning on the airplane had to be painful for everyone since I farted about 5,000 cubic yards of nasty aerosol and shit 3 times between Chicago and Philadelphia. The entire plane smelled like a ripe septic tank.