again, it’s poo
16 August 2007
I admit: It can sometimes be difficult to come up with material to write about on this here site. If you think about it, for over three and a half years, for a while every day but now three or four days a week, I’ve pumped out over two million words based on only six jokes:
1) I’m fat.
2) I’m super hairy.
3) I have a baby penis.
4) Women, they are not attracted to me so much.
5) I drink a lot – it makes me feel good.
6) Seriously, I have a really small bird. To be honest, I’m not even sure it’s there anymore; I haven’t seen it in weeks.
That’s about it. Sure, I make fun of my friends and family sometimes and occasionally provide scathing social commentary, but I’d say 82% of this site comes from those six jokes. Thank god y’all are just so bored at your jobs that you keep coming back. God bless you, you magnificent sons of bitches.
Anyway, it’s those days when something out of the ordinary happens to me, thus giving me something new to talk about, that I’m most grateful for. Like, for example, when something strange happens on my way to work, or I get a call from a buddy telling me a funny story, or my dad writes an editorial from the Philadelphia Daily News titled, "My Son Jasin [sic], The Half-a-Fag," and 100 people I grew up with forward it to me. These give birth to new posts that don’t revolve around the Six Jokes. Which is a good thing, I guess.
But sometimes something out of the ordinary happens to me that, even though I know it will make for great material, I wish had never happened to me at all. Like, for example, the events of yesterday.
On Tuesday night, I went out for a drink and left the bar just after 2am. I felt spectacular; I had a good time and a solid buzz that loosened me up nicely without causing me to worry about a hangover the next day. It was my first night out in NYC in weeks. It was a warm but clear and lovely night, the streets winding through Soho on the way back to my apartment were empty and felt like mine. I looked forward to getting into my apartment, cranking up the AC in my bedroom, and falling quickly asleep, content to be home.
But it was only seconds after I opened to the door to my apartment that that dream was quickly ruined. I noticed that, for the second time in three months, my toilet had exploded, spewing toilet water all over my bathroom and into my kitchen. But unlike last time, when the water was mostly clear, this water had stuff in it. This water was a murky greenish-brown, with soggy strings of toilet paper and what appeared to be shredded lettuce in it. And there was something else even more vile: chunks of brown matter, some as large as a baby’s fist, passing like ships in the water. We’re talking feces here, people - real, live poopy, floating in my bathroom, spilling into my kitchen.
Yikes.
And, [sound of me throwing up, pooping myself, then lighting my apartment and all my possessions on fire.]
Before I could process what was going on, I acted. The toilet was still exploding, so I quickly ran into my bedroom, threw on an old pair of boots and grabbed every towel I owned (save for one) and headed into the mess. If I learned anything from my toilet fiasco last time, it’s that in order to stop a toilet from exploding one must turn the toilet value against the wall on the lower left side of the toilet, effectively cutting off water to the toilet. This is first thing I did, in the hopes of preventing further damage. It was only after I had done this that I was able to assess what was going on: I was standing in my bathroom at 2:30 in the morning, half-drunk, in a inch of feces-filled water, wearing work boots, and holding my soon-to-be very unluxurious towels in my hands. Personally, I would have preferred to end the night with a handjob or a slice of pizza, but this would have to do, I guess.
I then went about the grim task of laying towels down to sop up the shit water, covering up the little balls of shit on my floor. As I did this, I was recovering from the initial shock and started to assess the situation. I would lay the towels down, then I would change. I still didn’t have a contact number for either my super, a drunk Italian man in his fifties who drinks wine all day at the Italian restaurant I live above, nor for my landlord, who can usually be found in the back office of said restaurant. Because it was almost 3am, the restaurant was closed. So I decided that after laying down the towels I would do some googling and hire the people who clean up after murders to come into my apartment and forever rid it of any traces of feces. They would probably come in the morning, and after they did their job, I’d promptly had the bill to landlord. This was the second time this had happened in three months, so obviously it didn’t get fixed the first time by plumbers the landlord chose, so they were going to pay not just to get it fixed, but for the clean up and the repurchase of all my bathroom stuff. F that.
Then it occurred to me: the poop I was standing in was not my poop. I had just returned to the apartment at 3am Sunday night/Monday morning. It was now Tuesday night, just about 48 hours later. In the meantime, I hadn’t even shit at my place yet, instead doing my duty at work. So the feces that I was now crushing under my previously luxurious towels belonged to either a) the tourists who ate in the Italian restaurant below or b) my Chinese neighbors.
Before I had time to process this thought and subsequently rip my own genitals off in disgust, the toilet exploded again – with extreme prejudice. While I was not hit by any of the turdish water pouring out (I was outside the bathroom in the kitchen at this point and the bathroom door was partially closed), poo water shot out of the toilet and the water level in the bowl soon rose and spilled over, again flooding the bathroom floor.
Again, yikes.
This was not supposed to happen. I had shut off the toilet valve, meaning no water should be coming into the toilet at all. But here it was, rising like the creature from the black lagoon out of the bowl, seeping slowly onto the towels on the floor after a quick shotgun blast.
This is where the real panic set in. I needed to call someone, and fast. I ran outside my apartment to see if anyone was in the restaurant – no dice. I called the restaurant, hoping at least for a machine, but there was no answer (it was 3am and dark inside the restaurant, so it was a shot in the dark). My super lives in the building next door, but the outer door was locked and the building doesn’t have a buzzer. So I wasn’t going to be able to get in touch with either my super or the landlord. Terrific.
The only recourse, I thought, was to call a plumber now. Like I said, every towel and dish rag in my apartment was now stemming the tide of the shit water, and it was working. Therefore, I had bought myself some time. So I sat at my computer and googled, "24 hour plumber NYC." Dozens of hits came up. I checked the Yahoo yellow pages – dozens of 24 hour plumbers as well. So I got to dialing.
I was up until after 4am calling these "24 hour" plumbers. Only one of the two dozen I called answered, and he said he’d be at my place at 9:30am. Again, terrific.
I walked over to my bathroom. The shit water was still coming out of the toilet, but at a much slower pace – it seemed generally less angry at me now. The towels were holding up and stemming the tide of shit water, not yet saturated. To be sure, I went and grabbed some old t-shirts to lay on top of the towels for extra absorption. Then, with nothing else to do, I went to bed, shit-spewing toilet and all.
******
The next morning is a blur of rage and feces. The plumber I called came, but he was sent away by my still drunk from the night before super, who refused to pay his price. This cause such a great deal of hubbub that one of the brothers of my landlord arrived at the scene. Instead, the super called his own plumbers, the same Russian guys who showed up before and previously "fixed" this problem. They soon showed up and began to work on the toilet.
By the point, after having slept about three hours the night before, I called my office to let them know I was working from home to make sure this problem was resolved. While the Russian plumbers worked away in my bathroom, I sat in my home office, trying to get stuff done. After about two hours, I heard a knock on my office door.
It was the landlord’s brother, an Italian-America guy with a thick Long Island accent. "It’s done," he said, "It’s fixed. But could you believe that?" Feeling that he might be blaming me, I said that I couldn’t believe it and didn’t know what caused the problem, pointing out that I returned two nights prior from a three week trip out of town and haven’t even shit in my bathroom since. Surprised, he asked if the plumbers had shown me was caused the problem. When I said no, he shook his head in disgust and said one word: "Tampons."
Apparently, he continued, someone in the building had been flushing tampons down the toilet, causing a building-wide septic system back-up that released itself on my apartment. "And," he added, "I think I know who it was."
There are eight apartments in my building: my apartment, an old Italian lady who lives on the top floor, and then six apartments filled with Chinese families. The landlord’s brother speculated that there was not one Tampon Bandit, but two – in this case, a set of Chinese twins maybe 12 years old who lived in the building. The landlord’s brother, with great gusto and a passion reserved for the most intense conspiracy theorist/lunies, said that it must be these twins, a few floors up and newly pubescent and therefore unschooled in the ways of tampon disposal, that were flushing their tampons down the toilet, nearly ruining the plumbing.
I was stunned listening to this, but just when I thought it couldn’t get any better – Chinese pubescent twins causing feces to explode into my apartment because of their tampon flushage? – he added, "And I bet they’re Chinese tampons, like real industrial-grade shit. You know what I mean? Probably not biodegradable and real serious shit, you know what I mean?"
Um, no. I have no idea what you mean at all, actually. But I’m glad my toilet’s fixed.
I spent the remainder of the day working with cleaning crews to clean the mess up, which they actually did a good job doing, and then spent my evening/night cleaning the place myself, which I did a pretty solid job of. While I probably wouldn’t eat off my bathroom floor, I bet it’s probably cleaner now then it was before Shit Expo 2007.
I don’t know if there’s a lesson in this story, because I’m very tired. And I suppose I’m glad I got a good story out of it – after all, it has all the dramatic elements needed: industrial strength tampons, 12 year old Chinese twins, a whole lot of shit, and a half-drunk protagonist.
But really, next time I’m hard up for something to write about, I’ll figure it out. The shit on my bathroom floor caused by tampons…that, I could live without. Really.
1) I’m fat.
2) I’m super hairy.
3) I have a baby penis.
4) Women, they are not attracted to me so much.
5) I drink a lot – it makes me feel good.
6) Seriously, I have a really small bird. To be honest, I’m not even sure it’s there anymore; I haven’t seen it in weeks.
That’s about it. Sure, I make fun of my friends and family sometimes and occasionally provide scathing social commentary, but I’d say 82% of this site comes from those six jokes. Thank god y’all are just so bored at your jobs that you keep coming back. God bless you, you magnificent sons of bitches.
Anyway, it’s those days when something out of the ordinary happens to me, thus giving me something new to talk about, that I’m most grateful for. Like, for example, when something strange happens on my way to work, or I get a call from a buddy telling me a funny story, or my dad writes an editorial from the Philadelphia Daily News titled, "My Son Jasin [sic], The Half-a-Fag," and 100 people I grew up with forward it to me. These give birth to new posts that don’t revolve around the Six Jokes. Which is a good thing, I guess.
But sometimes something out of the ordinary happens to me that, even though I know it will make for great material, I wish had never happened to me at all. Like, for example, the events of yesterday.
On Tuesday night, I went out for a drink and left the bar just after 2am. I felt spectacular; I had a good time and a solid buzz that loosened me up nicely without causing me to worry about a hangover the next day. It was my first night out in NYC in weeks. It was a warm but clear and lovely night, the streets winding through Soho on the way back to my apartment were empty and felt like mine. I looked forward to getting into my apartment, cranking up the AC in my bedroom, and falling quickly asleep, content to be home.
But it was only seconds after I opened to the door to my apartment that that dream was quickly ruined. I noticed that, for the second time in three months, my toilet had exploded, spewing toilet water all over my bathroom and into my kitchen. But unlike last time, when the water was mostly clear, this water had stuff in it. This water was a murky greenish-brown, with soggy strings of toilet paper and what appeared to be shredded lettuce in it. And there was something else even more vile: chunks of brown matter, some as large as a baby’s fist, passing like ships in the water. We’re talking feces here, people - real, live poopy, floating in my bathroom, spilling into my kitchen.
Yikes.
And, [sound of me throwing up, pooping myself, then lighting my apartment and all my possessions on fire.]
Before I could process what was going on, I acted. The toilet was still exploding, so I quickly ran into my bedroom, threw on an old pair of boots and grabbed every towel I owned (save for one) and headed into the mess. If I learned anything from my toilet fiasco last time, it’s that in order to stop a toilet from exploding one must turn the toilet value against the wall on the lower left side of the toilet, effectively cutting off water to the toilet. This is first thing I did, in the hopes of preventing further damage. It was only after I had done this that I was able to assess what was going on: I was standing in my bathroom at 2:30 in the morning, half-drunk, in a inch of feces-filled water, wearing work boots, and holding my soon-to-be very unluxurious towels in my hands. Personally, I would have preferred to end the night with a handjob or a slice of pizza, but this would have to do, I guess.
I then went about the grim task of laying towels down to sop up the shit water, covering up the little balls of shit on my floor. As I did this, I was recovering from the initial shock and started to assess the situation. I would lay the towels down, then I would change. I still didn’t have a contact number for either my super, a drunk Italian man in his fifties who drinks wine all day at the Italian restaurant I live above, nor for my landlord, who can usually be found in the back office of said restaurant. Because it was almost 3am, the restaurant was closed. So I decided that after laying down the towels I would do some googling and hire the people who clean up after murders to come into my apartment and forever rid it of any traces of feces. They would probably come in the morning, and after they did their job, I’d promptly had the bill to landlord. This was the second time this had happened in three months, so obviously it didn’t get fixed the first time by plumbers the landlord chose, so they were going to pay not just to get it fixed, but for the clean up and the repurchase of all my bathroom stuff. F that.
Then it occurred to me: the poop I was standing in was not my poop. I had just returned to the apartment at 3am Sunday night/Monday morning. It was now Tuesday night, just about 48 hours later. In the meantime, I hadn’t even shit at my place yet, instead doing my duty at work. So the feces that I was now crushing under my previously luxurious towels belonged to either a) the tourists who ate in the Italian restaurant below or b) my Chinese neighbors.
Before I had time to process this thought and subsequently rip my own genitals off in disgust, the toilet exploded again – with extreme prejudice. While I was not hit by any of the turdish water pouring out (I was outside the bathroom in the kitchen at this point and the bathroom door was partially closed), poo water shot out of the toilet and the water level in the bowl soon rose and spilled over, again flooding the bathroom floor.
Again, yikes.
This was not supposed to happen. I had shut off the toilet valve, meaning no water should be coming into the toilet at all. But here it was, rising like the creature from the black lagoon out of the bowl, seeping slowly onto the towels on the floor after a quick shotgun blast.
This is where the real panic set in. I needed to call someone, and fast. I ran outside my apartment to see if anyone was in the restaurant – no dice. I called the restaurant, hoping at least for a machine, but there was no answer (it was 3am and dark inside the restaurant, so it was a shot in the dark). My super lives in the building next door, but the outer door was locked and the building doesn’t have a buzzer. So I wasn’t going to be able to get in touch with either my super or the landlord. Terrific.
The only recourse, I thought, was to call a plumber now. Like I said, every towel and dish rag in my apartment was now stemming the tide of the shit water, and it was working. Therefore, I had bought myself some time. So I sat at my computer and googled, "24 hour plumber NYC." Dozens of hits came up. I checked the Yahoo yellow pages – dozens of 24 hour plumbers as well. So I got to dialing.
I was up until after 4am calling these "24 hour" plumbers. Only one of the two dozen I called answered, and he said he’d be at my place at 9:30am. Again, terrific.
I walked over to my bathroom. The shit water was still coming out of the toilet, but at a much slower pace – it seemed generally less angry at me now. The towels were holding up and stemming the tide of shit water, not yet saturated. To be sure, I went and grabbed some old t-shirts to lay on top of the towels for extra absorption. Then, with nothing else to do, I went to bed, shit-spewing toilet and all.
******
The next morning is a blur of rage and feces. The plumber I called came, but he was sent away by my still drunk from the night before super, who refused to pay his price. This cause such a great deal of hubbub that one of the brothers of my landlord arrived at the scene. Instead, the super called his own plumbers, the same Russian guys who showed up before and previously "fixed" this problem. They soon showed up and began to work on the toilet.
By the point, after having slept about three hours the night before, I called my office to let them know I was working from home to make sure this problem was resolved. While the Russian plumbers worked away in my bathroom, I sat in my home office, trying to get stuff done. After about two hours, I heard a knock on my office door.
It was the landlord’s brother, an Italian-America guy with a thick Long Island accent. "It’s done," he said, "It’s fixed. But could you believe that?" Feeling that he might be blaming me, I said that I couldn’t believe it and didn’t know what caused the problem, pointing out that I returned two nights prior from a three week trip out of town and haven’t even shit in my bathroom since. Surprised, he asked if the plumbers had shown me was caused the problem. When I said no, he shook his head in disgust and said one word: "Tampons."
Apparently, he continued, someone in the building had been flushing tampons down the toilet, causing a building-wide septic system back-up that released itself on my apartment. "And," he added, "I think I know who it was."
There are eight apartments in my building: my apartment, an old Italian lady who lives on the top floor, and then six apartments filled with Chinese families. The landlord’s brother speculated that there was not one Tampon Bandit, but two – in this case, a set of Chinese twins maybe 12 years old who lived in the building. The landlord’s brother, with great gusto and a passion reserved for the most intense conspiracy theorist/lunies, said that it must be these twins, a few floors up and newly pubescent and therefore unschooled in the ways of tampon disposal, that were flushing their tampons down the toilet, nearly ruining the plumbing.
I was stunned listening to this, but just when I thought it couldn’t get any better – Chinese pubescent twins causing feces to explode into my apartment because of their tampon flushage? – he added, "And I bet they’re Chinese tampons, like real industrial-grade shit. You know what I mean? Probably not biodegradable and real serious shit, you know what I mean?"
Um, no. I have no idea what you mean at all, actually. But I’m glad my toilet’s fixed.
I spent the remainder of the day working with cleaning crews to clean the mess up, which they actually did a good job doing, and then spent my evening/night cleaning the place myself, which I did a pretty solid job of. While I probably wouldn’t eat off my bathroom floor, I bet it’s probably cleaner now then it was before Shit Expo 2007.
I don’t know if there’s a lesson in this story, because I’m very tired. And I suppose I’m glad I got a good story out of it – after all, it has all the dramatic elements needed: industrial strength tampons, 12 year old Chinese twins, a whole lot of shit, and a half-drunk protagonist.
But really, next time I’m hard up for something to write about, I’ll figure it out. The shit on my bathroom floor caused by tampons…that, I could live without. Really.
