If It Growls In Your Bowels, You Had Better Run

I had no intention of posting this story or even telling close friends about this wily adventure face-to-face.  It was too personal and frankly a little on the too much information side of things.  But then I read a great story, somewhat similar but far worse than my own situation here at one of my favorite blogs.  After reading their horrific story, I had commented and posted how I understood their plight and shared a bit of my story with them.  However, my comment never posted.  Not sure if it was a glitch or if they have some form of approval system where they check out comments before they post and mine was perhaps not the cut of cloth they were wanting.  I certainly was not trying to upstage them in any way, as you will read below, I think I was far from it so they can keep the trophy.  But it got me thinking, eff it...I'll just share with everyone.

A quick note or disclaimer here, I will be sharing a story about poop (if you haven't figured that out already from the title of the post or if you hadn't read the above link).  If you don't like to hear about poop or poop in any form then you should disembark here.  You have been warned.

I decided to surprise the family with a trip to Disneyland over the last weekend of Mrs Griswold Wanna-Be's maternity leave back in December.  I went to pain staking efforts to hide this whole trip from the Mrs.  The kids, no problem.

This was not just a day trip.  We would be spending the night in one of the Disneyland hotels and I needed to pack for everyone.  If you have two kids then you know this is no small feat.  We needed clothes and backup clothes for both boys, plenty of diapers (two different sizes and nighttime diapers for the big guy...not me, smartass...my son), toothbrush, toothpaste, sound machines, pea pod for the little guy to sleep in, blankies, bottles, formula and vitamins.  And that's just for the kids.  I had to pack a small bag for myself and my wife and be sure to bring her make-up as well.  However, I couldn't do all of this in one fell swoop.  So the night before, I readied everything I could while the Mrs went out with the girls.  The trunk was packed and trunk cover was pulled over in case she happened to look in.  Now we just needed to get everyone out in the morning.  The lie was that we were taking the big guy to school as a family and then afterwards the three of us (the little guy, the Mrs and I) would head out to breakfast to use a Groupon deal we had purchased months ago.  I had it all under control, but the morning was going to be tough.

Needless to say, everything did not go as planned in the morning.  The little guy was a little fussy and the Mrs was reaching the point of not wanting to do this family trip to drop off our son at preschool.  Normally, if this wasn't all some big ruse I would have understood, but I was not taking no for an answer.  Seeing as I wanted to drive by the freeway exit for the preschool and then let everyone know where we were really going, I also could not tell her why I was so adamant about all of us going to drop off and breakfast.

And this wasn't even the hardest part.  I still had the matter of getting some extra last minute things: makeup, sound machines, blankies, etc. out of the house and into the car without her knowing what I was doing.  Luckily, the Mrs had asked that I stuff the car with things for Goodwill so I knew I could shove everything in a garbage bag and walk out of the house.  However, this all had to be done as she was getting the boys into the car and inevitably this took me longer than I thought it would.  I finally wrapped up my scampering around the house and when I opened the door to come out the Mrs was standing there asking me what was taking so long.  I was a little out of breath but I pieced some dingbat story together of the bag being in the garage and having to toss a few extras into it that I had forgotten about - she bought it...sort of.  Thankfully, she knows that I am a little obsessed sometimes and take longer to do things because I get sidetracked easily, otherwise she may have called my bluff.

So we were off and...oh shit!  I forgot to pull out the check for the dog sitter that I had written and hid the night before.  We were only 20 yards from the house so I stopped, couldn't come up with a lie, mumbled some BS and ran inside to unhide the check.  When I got back in the car I could feel the sweat on my back now.  I was sure she was onto me, but all she said was "we're going to be real late to drop off."  Yes we are.  Yes we are, my dear.  MMMMWWWAHAHAHAHAHA!  (good place for an evil laugh?)

I felt like the real Clark Griswold.  Well, not the real, I know he's just a character.  But you get the idea.  The alpha family man taking his family to the second happiest place on Earth (sorry Disneyland but DisneyWorld has you beat by miles - Tomorrowland is no Epcot and California Adventure, aside from the alcohol, is questionable at best and Walt would've punched you in the eye for that build).  I was giddy with excitement, and if you know me then you know this is not something I normally feel.  I don't get excited about stuff like most people.  But I had pulled off some pretty incredible shit over the last 14 hours...I was feeling good and I had yet to blow the doors open to everyone else.

As we were coming up to the exit, I found myself looking a little more towards the Mrs just so I could see her reaction.  Here it comes.  The exit is only 100 feet away and I am not in the exit lane.  Zzzzzoooooooom!  There it goes!  Now ask me, ask me, ask me damnit!  Why is no one asking me anything?  Finally, the Mrs says "Which way are you taking to preschool?".  "We're not going to preschool" I said.  "Seriously, where are you going?" she asked again.  "Anaheim" I said casually.  "No, seriously, where are you going?  We're going to be really late."  Did she just miss what I said?  So I said it again, and much like when I proposed to her (instead of a resounding "yes", I got a lackluster "thank you") the response was emotionally drab at best.  "Really?"  she asked.  Uh yes, really.  After about 30 questions of did I pack everything we needed, did I arrange for a dog sitter, did I call the school - she finally came around and started to get happy.  Not excited like I had imagined in my head, but happy.  Which is better than not happy I guess.

So we were off to the second happiest place on Earth.

That first day was great.  The big guy loved being there and most of all he was getting into riding the rides.  We rode the Astro Orbiter, the Jungle Boat, the Haunted House (bad idea with a 2 1/2 year old), Roger Rabbit, Dumbo, Storybook River, Small World, Finding Nemo and we even played around on Tom Sawyer's Island (or whatever they call it these days).  After dinner at the Blue Bayou (overpriced, but a must do if you are there - and lunch may be better than dinner) we hit up a few more rides before heading back to the hotel.  It was an awesome day.  Until it wasn't.

I had brought my camera into the park to get some night shots, so the Mrs took the big guy and I strapped the little guy to my chest and wandered around the Astro Orbiter.  Every time I stopped to take a picture, the little guy would start to whine.  To be fair though, we were now at least a hour past his bed time.  We called it a day and started walking back to the hotel through Downtown Disney.  That's when it hit me.

My stomach made that awful noise that sounds and feels like it just opened up the gullet and let everything run for the intestinal tract as if to say "you fed me nothing but pretzels, ice cream, candy, questionable theme park food and some overpriced, undercooked meat?  I'm done with this fuckery, buddy.  You deal with it."  At first I was cool.  No big deal, I thought.  We're only a five minute walk to the hotel and our room.  I'll be fine.  But having the little guy attached to my chest and his weight just pushing in on my stomach was just making things worse.

About halfway there, I had to start clenching.  I was getting the "could be gas, could be poop" knocks on my  backdoor.  Then my stomach and intestines all gurgled at the same time...oh no...not that.  The sign of imminent fecal danger.  Like Indian Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, there was a boulder coming my way and there was no stopping it.  The best you could do was hope to get out of the way.  At this point we were about 500 yards from the hotel and every step was getting harder and harder as my clench was losing the battle against the building pressure.  I told the Mrs. that I was in some real trouble and was going to move ahead.  I had to move quickly, but not too quickly otherwise I would lose my gluteus grip and all of my edible sins would come rushing out.

I made it to the elevator only to find about 7 other people waiting and the level indicator said it was on the 8th floor and not moving.  I started pacing back and forth all while trying to regain my cobra clench, but no luck and the elevator was still not moving.  That's when I saw it.  The bathroom down the stairs.  The Mrs was just walking in the lobby doors as I started down the stairs and shouted up that I would see her in the room.  She yelled something to me, probably something about taking the little guy from me, but I just yelled back "There's no time!"  And I ran in through the bathroom door.  Luckily there was no child behind the door as I would have likely maimed or killed him (just a note, bathroom doors should be hinged to pull out, not push in.  Nobody runs out of the bathroom, that's just stupid).  I then kicked (yes, literally) in the handicapped stall door (before you get your crutches in a bunch, I had the little guy on me and needed the room), dropped trou and hit the deck.

What happened next was both frightening and exhilarating all at the same time.  My ass made sounds it had never made before and you could almost hear all of the not-so-goodies flowing out of my guts.  Then the smell wafted up and that's when I re-realized I had the little guy attached to me still.  For just a couple of minutes, I had forgotten he was there.  Yet he was sound asleep (or knocked out from the sewer gasses emanating from my poop chute).  The kicking open of doors, the jostling around to get my pants down and the exaggerated drop to the toilet as my clench muscles finally exhaled - none of it affected his sleep.  Amazing.  I still had another several minutes of pressure relief to get through but the worst was over.  And wiping with a child strapped to your chest...not the greatest thing ever.  Clearly, Ergo and Baby Bjorn did not work in the ergonomics of ass wiping when they designed their products.

Alas, I was good to go.  Albeit 4 pounds lighter, but good to go.  I washed my hands and noticed I was sweating, and not just a trickle but profusely and all over.  So I cleaned up the face before heading back upstairs to my room.

As I walked back in the room the Mrs asked if I was alright and I told her "you don't even know."  Funny thing is that my night was far from over because if you read my blog regularly then you know that I went out shortly after this to take more photos and when I returned this happened.  Magic does live here, as do some well place bathrooms - thanks Walt!