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When I drive over the Queenboro Bridge at night and I see the entire city illuminated from the top to the bottom I imagine that each of the lights represents someone sitting on the toilet taking a dump. Where do you think all the shit goes for millions of people confined to an island? Don’t be surprised when you start to smell shit more often. Folks living up in Harlem on West 145th Street have been smelling NYC’s shit for years since the sanitation department’s waste transfer plant is up there. And some people still have the nerve to ask why Harlemites get asthma disproportionately. Anyhoo…

My story begins after a long day at the office. I found myself working late to make sure that a political project was handled properly. Please forgive the alliteration. I hadn’t left the office all day save for the two minutes that I went outside to purchase a gyro from the roach coach that parks across the street from my job. I don’t even know why I do it to myself. Their food runs through me like the #4 train from Grand Central to Union Square. It almost always starts an insurrection in my intestines. Truth be told is that I like to take a good crap. It makes me feel lighter and spry. So maybe subconsciously I really enjoy crappy food for the after effect.

As I finally left the office I had the chance to take a seat in the throne room. It was right around my scheduled drop off time too. I went into the bathroom in my office complex on the same floor as my cubicle. The cleaning staff hadn’t scrubbed down the toilets yet so I was disinterested in sitting inside those stalls. It amazes me how some adults will leave a bathroom in disarray. Who puts paper towels inside of a urinal? Who sprays urine all around a bathroom stall? I decided I would wait until I got home. There’s no better feeling than getting home and kicking off your shoes before your drop a deuce inside your own private Idaho.

My office is in the badlands area of NYC. That’s a secluded area of Queens near the East River just south of Queensbridge. If you don’t drive to work you are semi effed because the walk to the subway station takes about twenty minutes. After walking to the subway I waited an unusually long amount of time for my train. When it barreled into the station it was uncomfortably crowded for this time of the evening. This is the case when there is an unscheduled service interruption. So now I have to stand for the thirty or so minutes of my ride. The train crawls through the tunnel and it looks like my ride might be longer than I expected. Just then I felt ‘The Bubble’.

We all know what ‘The Bubble’ is. It’s that moment that your insides tell you that you need to find yourself a restroom. It’s like Def-Con 4 in your stomach. Systems are put on alert. There’s no war going on just yet, but people are awake. The train stalls inside one of the tunnels in between stations. I can feel a droplet of sweat forming at my scalp, then running down the side of my face. ‘The Bubble’ comes back. It moves down the pipe into a new position. It’s not at the door, but it’s in the hallway. If it stays put for a minute I have a chance to get home in time. I say a prayer.

When I exit the subway I’m at the commuter railroad terminal. I still have another leg to complete on my homebound odyssey. The delayed subway has caused me to miss the limited stop express train that I wanted to catch. Now I have to wait fifteen minutes for the south shore local. When the train arrives I rush onto the car and find myself a comfortable seat. Commuter trains have leather seats with headrests and ergonomic back supports. Yeah they cost a lot of money to ride and part of that cost goes to maintaining amenities that you may never use. Amenities like the bathroom. All of a sudden, ‘The Bubble’ makes a violent push to the doorway. What I call a colo-rectal code red. I’m not going to make it back to Freeport in time so I get up out of my seat and I look for the bathroom.

The bathrooms on the commuter railroad are not situated in every car, but in every other car of the train. It’s just my luck that I have to walk into the next car. ‘The Bubble’ strikes out at my intestines causing me to take a knee for a moment. There’s a wild situation going on in my stomach and if I don’t make it to the bathroom in time I may have to throw away the pants, socks and shoes that I’m wearing today. I hurriedly walk to the bathroom and when I grasp and twist the handle I see that the door is locked. Frustration covers my face and I look up to see that the bathroom has an ‘Out Of Order’ sign illuminated. I go to the next bathroom at a slightly faster pace. Not running, but definitely walking fast.

It would be just my luck that a pretty, young grey-green eye was sitting across from the bathroom. I was too far gone to walk to the next bathroom and as I passed her we both eyeballed each other. I closed the door to the batroom and engaged the locks. The last thing you want at this moment would be company. The bathrooms on the Long Island RailRoad are ridiculously spacious and I hung up my coat and work bag on the hooks provided. The toilet surface looked clean, but I still gave it the requisite wipe down and I even placed toilet paper on the seat. Without any time to waste I removed my button down shirt as well and then I sat down.

A toilet bowl with no water inside of it might as well be a megaphone or a gotdamned public address system. When I unleashed the war that was inside my bowels the echos from the machinegun fire and bombs dropping was almost deafening. I could only imagine what it sounded like outside of the bathroom. I laughed and groaned simultaneously. It felt like I was passing a brick. I cursed the mutant bacteria that lived in that piece of shit hot dog truck. After the first wave there was a second wave that was mushy and watery. I was in that bathroom so long I thought I was going to miss my stop. The classiest thing about LIRR bathrooms are the fresh babywipes. These things are murder on residential septic systems, but if you are in a hotel bathroom or a friends house I suggest you use them. Your ass will thank you.

When I exited the bathroom I looked at the grey-green eye, but she refused to look up at me. She prah’lee couldn’t handle the fact that real men take shits wherever they want to. She wasn’t that fine anyway. The train arrived at my stop in another minute and I left the train and then walked to my apartment. I narrowly avoided humiliation that evening and I was thankful to be back home again. I vowed from that night on to no longer eat from the food truck, unless of course, I was already sitting on the throne.