Once upon a time, back in the days of cell phones that opened with a flip,
A man was writing on his laptop at Tully’s Coffee in Seattle, leaving his wife at home with their infant son because he is an aspiring novelist, and he “needed to work on this thing in silence for the first time in a month,” so he escaped for a few hours and watched old James Taylor and Abba videos on YouTube while nursing his third Grande Drip.
As is often the case with an inquisitive, well-nourished and borderline “literary” member of the human species,
The ingestion of caffeine, an underrated laxative, imbued our hero with a blast of heat that surged through his intestines, making clear that he was urgently in need of dispelling feces.
“No problem, it’s the usual,” he figured, thinking that maybe while squatting on cool porcelain inspiration would beam down from the ceiling tiles, filling his brain with page-ready witticisms borne of candor and aplomb,
Although once he arrived at the door of the head and realized that he had to go back to the counter to pick up a key that was cleverly attached to a copy of the Milli Vanilli CD, the reverberation rumbling through his bowels let it be known that he would soon unleash a bomb.
Taking a hard-earned seat on the commode, he pulled his University of Arizona hoodie up to his belly, getting it out of harm’s way, although his knees knocked from the chill as something in the room emitted a shrill, pitched whine,
He let nature do its dirty work, feeling the pain and anxiety leave his body as he sunk back, resting the blades of his shoulders against the tank in a pronounced recline.
For the first time he heard music, the soothing opening riff of “The Funeral” by Band of Horses coming in from the slight crack underneath the door,
And he feverishly sang along, giving one final grunt and shake as his five-dollar foot-long suffered a funeral of its own, dropping like a brown stone to the white toilet floor.
Puppy dogs, sunshine and all was right with existence,
The burden had been lifted and drowned. But once the orgasmic release had dissipated, he was resigned to scooting right back to the laptop to force creativity in a hurry, all in the name of feigned persistence.
Post-wipe, he rose like a shot, efforting the much-rehearsed singular motion of pull-up-pants-and-flush,
And that’s when it happened — so quick, alarming and cruel that he didn’t have a second to blush.
Whilst tugging at the belt loops to bring beige Levi’s corduroys to waist,
Our protagonist forgot something important — something easy to space when operating within the finite, fetid realms of post-excremental haste.
That would be the flip phone, the one placed inside the hoodie pocket prior to departure, the one safely nestled next his navel, safe from slipping out of the sheath from either open end,
Until jarred loose in the uprising and diving from dark to light as if to run to the assistance of a needy friend.
Yes, it’s true: the industrial power of commercial johns can astound.
Especially when your cell phone with the programmed numbers of one hundred and ninety-three contacts is sucked right into the maelstrom, chasing your turd down the bowl into Seattle’s sewer system while paddling briskly to the Puget Sound.
(More apologies to Ogden Nash)
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