don't read this

it's been quite awhile since i've regaled my readers with a totally inappropriate tale of my exploits and escapades in the 8th floor bathroom.

my long-time readers undoubtedly remember that i've been - for quite a long time now - on a quest for the perfect bathroom at BLS. (see consume / disburthen, 9/12/04, my second menlovian entry ever!) my search for the perfect piece of porcelain has led me far and wide, from the highest floors of 250 joralemon to the lowest - ahem - bowels of the library.

having been unable to obtain keys to the locked bathrooms in the basement and the third floor, i have ended up settling for a relatively fantastic commode on the 8th floor.

technically, the 8th floor bathrooms are for faculty members, but i've been using them all year, and thus far no one has - ahem - raised a stink about it, and although there have been some raised eyebrows, that don't bother me.

i believe that the two secretaries outside of robyn's office are, by now, very used to the fact that every day around 10:45, i'm going to come strolling on by them with a copy of a.m. new york tucked under my arm, acting like i have official business around the corner.

(or maybe they don't notice me. i don't know... they do often seem to be rather busy talking to their friends on the phone, and looking at pictures of decoupage online. i mean, they can't both be robyn's secretaries, can they? have you ever compared those two with the secretaries outside of dean wexler's office on the 9th floor? i could write a whole blog entry on that contrast. you know what? maybe i will. anyway, i digress...)

the point is that i feel very much at home in the 8th floor head, and make it my business to get in some quality time there at least once every day before class begins.

well, today was no different.

though, that's technically not accurate. in that i was in my assigned seat at 10:45 a.m., reading the free but surprisingly entertaining newspaper, then i guess that today was no different.
however, the thing that happened at 10:46 made it completely different. it was one of the most bizarre, frightening, and wonderful things that i've ever witnessed.

and that's what i'm writing about today.

what i'm about to tell you is completely true.* at times, as it was happening, i could hardly believe it myself, and my recollection here is admittedly a bit colored by the shock and disorientation i felt as the events were unfolding, but nevertheless, this actually happened. i couldn't make this shit up if i tried.

so there i was, minding my own business. i was done with my property reading, so no worries on that front, and everything was coming out on schedule, so no worries in terms of being late for the beryl jones experience. though i'd only been in there for a couple minutes, i was already on page 4 of the paper. (i'm a fast reader, and that's what i like about a.m. new york, it's meant to be read during a twenty minute commute, but i can read the whole thing during a fifteen minute dump. i guess in a sense, there is a commute of sorts going on, it's just that my lower intestines are like the subway tunnels, and the toilet is like the train station, and the train itself... well, i guess we'd have to call it the douwe egberts express, it's not the most pleasant train to ride on, and the passengers, well, let's just say some of them are a bit - ahem - corny, and some of them are - ahem - absolutely nuts... and, now that i think of it, this must be the foulest, stinkiest digression i've ever taken in one of my blogs, which is really saying something, considering the already-shitty quality of much of what i write. anyway, i digress...)

the point is that i was minding my own business, and life was good.

until all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the door to the men's room bursts open. it didn't just open, it burst open, as if someone had thrown a pretty powerful forearm into it, nearly jarring it off its hinges.

now i'm fairly used to having company in there between 10:45 and 11 in the morning. as it turns out, i'm far from being the only excretorian who prefers the cushy confines of the 8th floor.

the problem, as you can imagine, is that my fellow poopers are largely comprised of tenured professors, guys who have been dropping BLS bombs since the mid-80's, guys who might not take so kindly to some lowly 1L menlove creeping on their turf.

the point is that in these situations, i either have to get out of there quickly before they emerge from their stall, or somehow outlast them, which can be rather difficult, considering that with some of these old timers... well, let's just say the plumbing don't work so good, prostates and hemorroids can run amuck; the bottom line is that i can end up being in there for quite awhile waiting for nature to run its course, which puts me at risk for being late to class. you get the point.

so where was i? oh yes, the door flies open, and in a whirlwind of motion (shoes squeaking on the floor, a briefcase hurriedly dropped), the door to the stall next to me is violently opened and quickly slammed shut again.

i can tell right away that this is an emergency situation, but i didn't realize at the time quite how frantic my next-door neighbor actually was. he begins fumbling with his belt and pants, and as he did so, he starts mumbling and moaning out loud in frustration and fear... "oh no... oh no..."

so i'm sitting there thinking, jesus tittyfucking christ, dude, wondering what in the world is going on, and i can hear his wild paroxysms and struggles with his belt buckle getting more and more violent, and his voice getting louder... "come on.. oh no! oh god!"

and just then, he must have gotten his buckle open, i hear his pants and underwear come down in one quick motion, but at that exact moment, in the split second between the trousers dropping and his ass hitting the toilet seat, it hits me like a barrel of flour - i know that voice!

now i'm not going to tell you who it was, because - let's face it - if you were a professor, a professor who either taught us in the past, or is teaching us now, you wouldn't want to be implicated in my horrific little - um - fecalogue either, now would you? so for the sake of anonymity, we'd better just refer to him as professor normbert gorbokstein, esquire.

unfortunately, this realization - that i was pooping next to a prof - had little time to set in before things really started getting out of control.

(anyone who is feeling nauseous or uncomfortable reading what i've written thus far, STOP READING NOW. this ain't going to be pretty.)

(i'm fucking serious... come back tomorrow. i'll write something about beryl's sneakers. it'll be funny, and it'll make you forget all about this unfortunate business.)

(still here? good. enjoy. this one's for you, dear menlovian reader. just don't say i didn't warn you.)

***

it began with all the subtlety of a bolt of lightning. there was no hesitation, no warning, no false start. and it shrieked like the unholy squealing of an eviscerated kosher pig. it splashed like an open fire hydrant on a south bronx summer morning. and it flowed - oh, how it flowed.

professor normbert gorbokstein's ass faucet had been turned on full blast, and it wasn't about to let up. peeking under the partition, i saw his legs kicking in the air, several inches off of the ground, as if a thousand volts of electricity were passing through his body.

i don't know if this thundering defecatory denouement lasted for five seconds or a full minute. i was completely flabbergasted. it was a cacophony of gushing feces and rapid, staccato gaseous expulsions, all reverberating within the churning waters of the toilet bowl. but then, as quickly as it started, the flow somehow relented, trailing off to some sad and defeated-sounding squirts and toosieburps.

professor gorbokstein let out a huge sigh of relief, and so did i. my relief, however, was short lived, because just as the sound finally died out, the tiniest whiff of his waste wafted into my stall, beginning the most unconscionable olfactory assault imaginable.

it smelled like a zombie's colostomy bag... like a maggot orgy in a putrefied piece of fetid fish flesh that had been unceremoniously shoved up my nose. and as i began to smell not just the penumbra of the dump, but the vile core itself, i believe that i died a little on the inside.

i don't know what came over me, but the smell and the moment simply became too much for me to handle, and something had to be done. without thinking, i sort of leaned towards the wall between us, and in a desperate half-whisper, stammered out: "courtesy flush, please."

thankfully, professor normbert gorbokstein was a kind man, and he obliged by hitting the lever.

however, any relief that i felt was short lived, as i immediately knew that something was wrong. it just didn't sound right.

and when i heard the professor's "oh, fuck" ring out next to me, i knew that the water - dookie and all - was going up, not down.

i mean, what would you do in this situation? i'm sitting there with my jeans around my ankles, the newspaper still splayed out across my lap, and a piece of doodie pretty much frozen in its tracks hanging halfway out of my ass.

there wasn't any time to react. i heard the water beginning to trickle down to the floor. then the trickle became a steady, sloppy stream, which i first heard, then saw running across the floor, quickly breaching the sacred space on my side of the partition. it was the foulest, crustiest, most evil liquid i'd ever seen... runny yet chunky, speckled with bits of blood and what appeared to be couscous (or some variety of crushed and steamed semolina), and strangely enough, more yellow in color than brown. let's call it an ochre-burnt umber hybrid.

in one quick motion, with a squeeze of the old assphyncter, i decapitated the piece of poop loitering in my rectum, then wiped furiously (and, admittedly, incompletely, but desperate times, you know?), yanked up my pants, and darted out of the stall, avoiding the creeping doom on the floor by no more than a split second. i thought i was home free, but then i heard that voice from behind the stall again.

"wait!" it pleaded, the paused for a few beats. "who... who are you?"

oh fuck, i thought. i didn't know what to say. the guy freakin' knows me, for cryin' out loud. i had to come up with something, and quick, but unfortunately, i had exhausted my entire supply of pseudonyms over the last few weeks of legal writing, as robyn has had a seemingly insatiable appetite for new ones. but try as i might, i simply could not come up with anything plausible, so i just spurted out the first thing that came to mind:

"groves v. wunder," i said, hardly believing it myself, even as the words came out of my mouth.

"what?" he replied.

shit!!!, i thought to myself. he's going to know i am a student. i had to amend my answer.

"my name is groves v. wunder, attorney at law."

no sooner than i had said it, i was thinking, what the fuck was that, menlove! i mean, what kind of asshole has the name groves? and did the current situation call for such formality that i needed to offer up the middle initial??? and who in their right mind calls themselves "attorney at law"??? i felt compelled to clarify.

"i'm an... uh... a visiting professor from SUNY law school."

this time, there was no reply. i was totally busted. he must've known my voice, and through the crack by the door, i think he could probably see my face as well.

but miraculously, he decided to play along. it was like a little legal fiction we both decided to accept, if only for the time being.

"mr. wunder, i'm terribly sorry to bother you, but would you mind handing me some paper towels before you go?"

i was only too glad to help. "of course not, sir. how many do you need."

i'll never forget his reply. he was almost laughing as he said it, and his voice was full of relief, humility, and embarrassment, but it was still tinged with a hint of pride.

"you'd better give me everything we've got."

so i went over by the sinks, and dug my fingers as far as they went inside of the paper towel dispenser (the professors have the same crappy, stubborn dispenser on the eighth floor that we have in our restrooms), and pulled them out, a dozen at a time. after pulling out every single one i could, i gingerly tiptoed over to the door of the stall, and held them underneath the door.

he grabbed them, and without another word, i slipped out the door, back out into the sanctity of the hallways of the 8th floor, knowing that i'd never set foot in that bathroom again.

***

*by true, i mean completely and totally false. thanks for reading. -menlove

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