My Bowels Rock.

My bowels rock. Sometimes I have to drop a deuce really bad but then I simply forget I have to go. Maybe I won’t even remember until later the next evening. I know this isn’t the case for most people. A lot of my friends have to go right away when the urge befalls them. So I’ve always considered myself very fortunate.
Italy defeated my bowels.
It wasn’t Rome or Florence or Venice, it was the small town of Livorno, where I lived and studied Italian for several months. This is a small town that was pretty much destroyed by Allied bombing in WWII. This town is not picturesque Italy. No churches, no worthwhile statues, and no one speaks English. Oh, and they cook everything in gallons of olive oil as my colon soon learned.
There was another American studying there and I offered to walk her home one night after eating a hefty helping of pasta, calzones, wine, and cheese. I didn’t like this girl, but I wanted to be a gentleman and make sure she got home ok. She lived about a thirty minute walk away from where my apartment was, but it was a nice night and I like to walk so I offered. She accepted.
As we were nearing our journey to her place, the bend before the break set in the form of gas. As I felt the gas building, I craftily let the farts float out rather silently. She was none the wiser. When I didn’t trust my control, I spoke loudly as to mask whatever noise might squeak out.
After she went inside, I began to walk home and suddenly felt the onset of that evening’s dinner. Like Mike Tyson in prison, it wanted out. It was 2am and I couldn’t ring the girl’s bell because she was staying with her relatives. Everything was closed. I decided the only thing I could do was run.
So I ran, the whole time thinking up different strategies. If the pressure built too much, I’d have to drop deuce in some bushes. What would I use to wipe though? Hopefully, it wouldn’t get that bad, I hoped. It did.
Without caring about wiping, I dove behind a fence and curled into a fetal position in the hopes I could clamp off the valves from gushing. It worked when you did it to a water hose but, as with a water hose, a little trickle began to squirt out. Then my whole stomach seemed to recoil, while making a noise like a dump truck screeching to a halt. The pressure had subsided though and I decided to run for it.
It was a hard run and my bottom was so greased, it felt as if my legs would pop off from overexertion. I ran towards my apartment that seemed an entire city away. Then the pressure came again and I crashed behind a dumpster.
To my joy, this was the dumpster of an Italian video rental place. They had just discarded hundreds of VHS covers that were strewn across the street. I picked one up and it read “Un Girono di Ordinaria Follia,” or “Falling Down,” as we know it here, in the States. I took it as a sign. This was a movie about a guy who couldn’t take it anymore and just broke down. This was me not being able to take it anymore and it was time for me to break down as well.
I looked up to the windows of the apartments in front of me. Someone could be watching, but at this point it didn’t matter. I pulled my pants down, completely sprayed the dumpster’s outer wall, and picked up some of the covers to wipe with, only to find they all had glossy coating. I didn’t even try. I just knew it would make matters worse.
With my pants around my ankles, I picked up a few specific covers that I thought perhaps I could sell on Ebay. Then I hobbled into this shadowy doorway. Luckily, I found refuge there in the darkness. No one seemed to be out and about and I thought about how I was going to find something to wipe my arse with. The best thing I could come up with was to use my underwear to wipe with and run home in my shorts. It didn’t seem all that bad. I wiped, dumped the underwear in the dumpster, and checked out the rest of the VHS covers for some Evil Dead or something interesting. I found Classe 1999, added it to my pile and ran the last stretch.
As I ran, my stomach sounded detached. It sounded like a large fish in a tiny fishbowl sloshing around. Already, I could feel the pressure building again. I had faith though because I had just emptied everything out. I sprinted, and felt the unnerving feeling of feces jetting down the backs of my legs. While running I looked back and noticed that it looked like two replications of the Italian peninsula painted on the backs of my legs.
At this point, I was defeated. I just kept running and even shit myself 2 and ½ more times before I finally reached my place. I snuck in very quietly, threw my shorts and shirt out the window, and took a shower. Yep, my shirt had gotten sprayed as well.
I deuced a couple a more times that night. I shouldn’t even say deuce. It was like a #5. I’ve always been at one with my colon, and had never experienced anything like it. Someone had explained to me it was the olive oil, that in Livorno they cook everything with tons of the stuff. More so than anywhere else in Italy… or as I now call it sometimes, “Shitaly.”

C. Haraway