Poopscapades in … Pooping

Being a lady is tough when you´re traveling. You have to carry so much around with you, makeup, shoes, boobs. The heaviest thing? Your dignity. Dignity really prevents you from doing a lot of the shit you really want to do. Like hooking up with that skeezy Frenchman who really looks like he would know what to do with you in bed. Or on the other hand, it really fucks with your self-esteem when you lose some. Like when you hook up with that skeezy Frenchman and find out later you have gonneria. (There´s a reason why I don´t know how to spell it. My dignity is intact, thank you.)

I have trouble pooping. It´s not like I´m constipated or anything (thanks for saving my heiny from hemorrhoids, Metamucil! (there´s a joke here but you have to work for it)). I have no problems talking about poop, but I squeam to think about drafting a duplex and then watching helplessly as another architect presents his blueprints right after me. Whyyy?? Everyone presents blueprints, what´s wrong with me?!

I´m a girl. That´s what´s wrong with me. Society makes women feel like their assholes are entrance-only. Women don´t fart and they certainly don´t poop.

Clearly, ¨Society¨ has never spent a Beerfest weekend with me.

I know some women who are so cool about it. They actually believe it´s natural and nothing to be ashamed of. These are also the sort of women who say things like, ¨I don´t like to plan my life that far in advance. I prefer to live in the moment,¨ when you ask them shit like, ¨What are your plans for the weekend?¨ Bougie assholes.

Corporate pooping is like espionage. It´s clandestine. When I worked in an office in NY, there were two bathrooms for women. One was for smaller transactions and the other was for major business deals. If you saw a co-worker in the poop bathroom, you knew why they were there. No one wants to stick around and apply lip gloss or check for boogers in the poop bathroom.

One time I went in — my straits dire — and found both stalls occupied. I should have left immediately and come back later, but I hesitated (a combination of classic Libra indecisiveness and near-explosive street meat exodus). I pretended to wash my hands. I prayed to God, ¨Please, God. Open up a stall for me before I coat myself in Hana chocolate.¨

The clouds parted. I saw my coworker Jean* come out. Poor thing had that deer-in-headlights look that says, ¨Oh shit. You just heard me poop and now we have to be nonchalant about it.¨

I must say, we were two cool customers. I pushed her the fuck aside and made sure she had nothing to be embarrassed about. In comparison.

In New Zealand they call the bathroom ¨the toilet.¨ To Americans, the word ¨toilet¨ refers literally to the human waste receptacle; it sounds uncouth. Like noodles on a chalkboard.

I just started working for an environmental organization here that treats wastewater and monitors pollution. I don´t know why that´s relevant. Oh yes, we´re talking about poop.

Anyway, it was my first day and I was answering phones. (Shit, I forgot to give you some backstory. My brother from another mother Simeon* got fired from a job because his accent was too thick for Kiwis to understand. He´s from around Newcastle in the UK, methinks. He was selling health services to the hearing impaired over the phone. I shit you not. Why anyone would try to sell things to the hearing impaired over the phone is beyond me.) Keeping Simeon´s story in mind, I answered the phones with a Kiwi accent.

Okay, that was pretty irrelevant. But what comes now is relevant. I took a bathroom break, and because I was in the mood to adopt Kiwi ways, I asked where the toilet was. ¨I have to use the toilet,¨ I said. And then I burst into the kind of giggles that made everyone around me feel really awkward and fear for my sanity and their safety. It also clearly demarcated the time that I went into the toilet. So I felt like I couldn´t poop because when I came out, everyone would know the weird American had just pooped. So I waited. And I walked home. And the clouds parted for me once again.

I came upon a public toilet. It was like a mini-brick house for my pooping pleasure. A sign from God. Here´s a foto for your enlightenment.

Look at the image of the woman. Look at what broad shoulders she has! What a confident stance. This is not a squeamish woman. This is a woman who shamelessly poops in public. This is the kind of woman I aspire to be someday.

Yours pooply,

Hanana

*names changed to protect the innocent