The Steakhouse Incident

Now, I know that there is a lot of embellishment that occurs on this

group and I am aware that a small number of things are perhaps sheer
fabrication, but I have a story to tell that is the absolute truth.
Funniest damn thing that has ever happened to me.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steakhouse for

dinner. It was a Wednesday night which means that macaroni and beef was
on the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served.
Wednesday night is also kid's night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the
Clown wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastards.
It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to
those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment.

We went through the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat
hot bar then sat down as far away from the front of the restaurant as
possible in order to keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I
started my move to the hot bar. Plate after plate of macaroni and beef
were consumed that evening, I tell you -- in all, four heaping plates
of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were shoved into my belly. I was sated.
Perhaps a bit too much, however.

I had not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and
such. By the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in
real trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was
having trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was
building. At first, I thought it was only gas which could have been
passed in batches right at the table without to much concern.
Unfortunately, that was not to be. After a minute or so it was clear
that I was dealing with explosive diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can
make its way through your intestines far faster than the food which
spawned the grease to begin with, but I digress...

I got up from the table and made my way to the bathroom. Upon entering,
I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to the
right of the sinks, and two toilet stalls against the back wall. One of
them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the
handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good
steamer, but in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing
I hate worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a
pair of diagonal wire cutters is having someone walk in on me while I
am taking a squatter. I went to the normal stall.

In retrospect, I probably should have gone to the large, handicapped

stall even though the door would not lock because that bit of time lost
in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too long under the
circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular stall, the
pressure on my rear was reaching Biblical proportions.

I began "The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to
explain "The Move." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any
given second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of
physiological events occur that can not be stopped under any
circumstances.
There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the
toilet, beginning the body turn to position ones ass toward said
toilet, hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the
pants while beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid
motion that, when performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion
of excrement at the exact same second that ones rear is properly placed
on the toilet seat. Done properly, it even assures that the other tool
is properly inserted into the front rim of the toilet in the event that
the urine stream lets loose at the same time; it is truly a picture of
coordination rivaling that of a skilled ballet dancer.

I was about half-way into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor
and saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of
those little “children of an unwed mother” attending kids night; it was
mounded up in the corner so I did not notice it when I had first walked
into the stall. Normally, I would not have been bothered by such a
thing, but I had eaten so much and the pressure upward was so intense,
that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex. And once that reflex
started, combined with the intense pressure upward caused by the
bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started coming up for
a rematch. What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of
events are a bit fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I
can.

In that moment of impending projectile vomiting, my attention was

diverted from the goings-on at the other end. To put a freeze frame on
the situation, I was half crotched down to the toilet, pants pulled
down to my knees, with a load of vomit coming up my esophagus. Now,
most of you know that vomiting takes precedence over bowel movements no
matter what is about to come slamming out of your rear. It is
apparently an evolutionary thing since bowel movements will not kill
you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do
not aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to
death. My attention was thus diverted.

At that very split second, my rear exploded in what can only be

described as a wake...you know, as in a newspaper headline along the
lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something similar.
In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an enormous
plug of excrement the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of
greasy liquid came flying out of my rear. But remember, I was only
half-way down on the toilet at that moment. The wave was of such force
and of just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the toilet
seat that it ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the
wall at an angle of incidence equal to the angle at which it initially
hit the toilet seat. Then I sat down.

Recall that when that event occurred, I was already half-way to sitting
anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always
considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you
get beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you
may be. Needless to say, the wave, though of considerable force, was
not so sufficient so as to completely glance off the toilet seat and
deposit itself on the walls, like what you would see when hitting a
puddle with a high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at
the puddle, the puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a
puddle.
There was a significant amount of excrement remaining on about one-
third of the seat rim which I had now just collapsed upon.

Now, back to the vomit...

While all the other was going on, the vomit was still on its way up.
By the time I had actually collapsed on the toilet, my mouth had filled
up with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed.
OK, so what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One
bends over. So I bent over. I was still sitting on the toilet, though.
Therefore, bending over resulted in me placing my head above my now
slightly-opened legs, positioned in between my knees and waist. Also
directly above my pants which were now pulled down to a point just
midway between my knees and my ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was
wearing not just pants, but sweat pants with elastic on the ankles.

In one mighty push, some three pounds of macaroni and beef, two or
three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls were deposited in my
pants...on the inside...with no ready exit at the bottom down by my
feet.

In the next several seconds, there were a handful of farts, a couple of

logs, and the event ended, yet I was now sitting there with my pants
full of vomit, my back covered in sludgee that had bounced off the
toilet,
spattered on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet,
and still had enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my
shirt with droplets of liquid poo. All while thick poo was spread all
over my rearin a ring curiously in the shape of a toilet seat.

And there was no $%##@ toilet paper.

What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a complete maniac
to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually asked if I
was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I was
crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would
get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet
paper.

When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but
in no way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that
there was no way I was going to explain what was happening in the
stall, but that I needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask
my wife to come help me. I told him where we were sitting and he left.
At that point, I think he was probably assuming that I had tinkled just
a bit in my pants or something similarly benign.

About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom not knowing
what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice. I
explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words)
that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had
experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I
had laid down a small rock or something and just needed to bring the
car around so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure
she had no idea that she was about to go across the street and purchase
me new underwear, new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time
due to considerable leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new
sneakers. And she then started to laugh herself since I was still
laughing. She began to ask for an explanation as to what had happened
when I promised her that I would tell her later, but that I just needed
to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few
dry ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he
assured me that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned.
Without giving him specific details, I explained that what was going on
in that stall that night was far in excess of what I would expect
anyone to deal with, what with most of the folks working at Ryan's
making minimum wage of just slightly above. At that moment, I think it
dawned on him exactly the gravity of the situation. Then that manager
went so far above the call of duty that I will be eternally grateful
for his actions. He hooked up a hose.

Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and

tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make
clean up easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked
up the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning
myself up with the wet towels. Just as I was finishing, my wife got
back with the new clothes and passed them into the stall, whereupon I
stuffed the previously worn clothing into the plastic bag that came
from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I finished cleaning myself
off and carefully put on my new clothes, still stuck in the stall since
I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out of the stall to get
redressed in the event I happened to be standing there naked and some
little kid walked in. At that point, I had only made a mess; I had not
yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.

When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up

the entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the
center of the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom.
I had intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done,
but when I walked out, three of the management staff were there to
greet me with a standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I
thought I was going to throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the
car where my wife was now waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at

Ryan's Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of
any restaurant in which I have eaten.

Steve Crisp