My stomach has yet to decide how it feels about American food. Most days it is fine, but then there are days that it kicks into high gear and my food begins to rocket through my body at record speeds. And this doesn’t always occur at the most convenient moments. For example, I was at a football party the other day, and we were all in the living room watching the game, eating, drinking, and in general carrying on in the loud way that you do when watching sports. Suddenly, the chips and queso seemed like a veeeeery bad dinner choice. I sat on the couch and tried to act inconspicuous as the first wave of cramps and chills washed over my body, hoping and praying that it was just a touch of indigestion and everything would return to normal if I promised not to eat any more Little Caesar’s fast and ready pizza. My hopes sank (along with OU’s possibilities of beating Miami) as the next set of goosebumps marched their way down my arms. I had no choice but to ask the owner of the house where his bathroom was.
Why is it that you can be at the loudest event ever, but the moment the bathroom door shuts you are immediately hit with the conviction that everything outside that door has stopped in an effort to find out what you are doing? While part of you realizes that no one has even noticed that you left the room, the rest of you insists that they can hear every move you make and as a result you spend the entire, agony-wracked time trying to make as little noise as possible. You could be having a KISS concert in your living room and you still, the moment that bathroom door shut behind you, would be trying to micromanage every rectal contraction for fear that your lavatory activities may overwhelm Ace Frehley’s guitar solo , capturing you during what really is one of man’s most vulnerable moments.
I thought I had gotten over this fear during my stay in Peru, thanks to the combination of nearly constant attacks on my lower intestine and the complete lack of privacy in all Peruvian bathrooms. I quickly lost my very American rhypophobia (fear of defecation) solely for the reason that I could not be picky about where and when I used the bathroom. My main hope was only that there was a bathroom. And so, at some point, I stopped caring whether or not people could hear me, and I was really hoping that attitude would continue here in the US. Unfortunately, it would seem that it hasn’t and this makes me sad. Can’t we all just admit that everyone does it and stop considering it something to be ashamed of? I mean, if you think about it, the only people who don’t poop are dead. Therefore: To poop… is to live.
Here’s to life.
