Have you ever been out and about, shopping perhaps? Or in the closing minutes of an epic sporting encounter? Or maybe even at the bedside of a terminally ill relative? And had that sinking feeling, that feeling of helplessness, that feeling of hopelessness? Like a down-and-out Harry Potter at the mercy of a dementor's kiss, you feel like you will never be happy again. This feeling, of course, is an awkward and untimely bowel movement, that arrives with impressive precision whenever all avenues for escape are closed for business. Well that happened to me today. Ladies and gentlemen, for one night only I will literally be talking shit.
It all began at lunch-time with a faint buzzing from the coffee table. A light zz-zz turned in to a continual zzz which turned in to buh-zzz before finally deciding on a louder compromise BUH-ZZZ-ZZZ. No, thank God, I hadn't forgotten to hide away my naughty toys, it was my father calling me on my i-Phone.
"Jack, come to Oxford Circus. We're going to buy you a computer with your inheritance money," my father, Bruce, explained to me. "It's what he would have wanted." My Great Uncle had died a few months back and I had just been given a thousand pounds in his will. I have never fully understood the principal of a last will and testament. It's kind of a way of softening the blow – it's an 'I'm dead now, but because I knew you, and liked you to some degree in the later years of my life, and assuming you're still alive when I'm not, I'll let you have my money' sort of thing. I'm not ungrateful - far from it in fact. I would describe myself as grateful. I'm full of grate – I'm getting a new laptop out of it. How could I not be?
It was fifteen minutes later that, after haphazardly pulling on any t-shirt and jeans combination I could find, I left my flat and began walking to the bus stop looking like a poster boy for a charity shop. That was my first mistake. My flat is my fortress. One door sealed by an electronic lock that only the residents have the fob to is complimented by two flights of stairs, and an industrial strength lock with chain on my front door. My bathroom also has a lock on the door. No bugger would ever interrupt my toilet activities. I have the Fort Knox of toilets. But I had wandered out of my comfort zone.
I signalled for the bus, and when it arrived so did my urge to excrete. It was early days, but it was definitely there. The opening exchanges in an on-going dialogue between nature and free-will. I had the choice, walk two minutes back to my flat, or board the bus. I did the latter. Right now, on the bus, as things stood, I could hold on. I could find a toilet at the railway station.
Wrong. Well, partially wrong. Call it stubbornness if you like, but I couldn't go and for good reason. I had reached the station unharmed. I sauntered coolly and carefully, following the helpful and clearly marked signage, to the gents, where I was faced with my dilemma. I had completely forgotten, as I strolled up to a set of turnstiles, that this particular station was run by toilet-Nazis. They expected me to pay the sum of thirty pence for the privilege of shitting in their loos. As I wasn't yet completely desperate, and I wasn't yet touching cloth, I decided to make a stand. I would not be pooing here today. In hindsight, I should have done.
I reached my train, delayed by only two minutes, that's basically on time for London, and I boarded. Even though the train wasn't completely full, with the odd free seat scattered around the carriage, I thought in the circumstances it was safer to stand. It was due to this decision that I arrived at Waterloo (an unhelpful name for a station when you badly need to relieve yourself) and later Oxford Circus without incident.
Bruce was waiting for me outside a running shop when I arrived. He's a keen runner. He calls it a hobby. Seriously… running where's the fun? Actually, come to think of it, that's on a par with his other hobby – stamp collecting. We headed to a department store on Oxford Street, and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor – the lift was out of action and the escalators had stopped. I won't lie to you, by the time I reached the top my problems had tripled. Not only did I now need to poo, I also needed to wee, and in addition to that had beads of sweat trickling down my arse crack. Things had just become dire. I looked around. There was a café – and it was open. They must surely have toilets. I decided to make my excuse and waddle over to the loo when Bruce dropped a bombshell. I had to choose now because he was paying (the inheritance was in his account) and he only had twenty minutes before his train home to Manchester.
Argh! I bit my lip. I wasn't going to let this turd beat me. As it happens I already had a very good idea of which laptop I wanted. It was a silver Sony Vaio. I'd like to say I wanted it because of the 6GB of memory, or the Intel Core i5 processor, but they weren't the reason. It was the Blu-ray player. Yes, I'm a DVD geek, so shoot me. So I tried to summon a sales assistant pronto. That was almost as trying as what was going on beneath the fabric of my underwear. I found four, yes four sales assistants, dealing with one complainant. Oh. My. God. I could scream. In fact I did.
"Any time you like!" I hollered, catching the attention of one of the greasy teenage sales assistants. He looked like the kind of kid that plays pokémon and squeezes his whiteheads on the mirror above the sink in public toilets.
"Be with you soon sir." He said, looking like he had neither the intention nor the inclination to serve me.
"No, you'll serve me now! We have to go very very soon." I said fiercely. Which of course was true in different ways for both of us.
Eventually he did serve me. I took a second hand laptop for a very reasonable £650 down from £800. I wouldn't normally, but I wasn't going to walk out of there empty handed. After a sarcastic smile and a "Have a nice day" I left the premises to wave my dad off at the station. Different station – same power mad Nazis. I now knew how child-birth felt. I had something the rough size and weight of a kitten pushing down with ever-increasing force on a very small orifice. It was agony. I crawled, as if wounded, to a small coffee shop outside the station. I threw open the disabled toilet door. I secured the room. And without hesitation I unclenched. It was majestic. Suddenly I was ten stones lighter.
Some people say sexual intercourse is the best feeling in the world. These people have clearly never had a really good shit.
Jack 'Shitter' Green
