It is the worst case scenario: you need to go, but you don’t have access to a toilet. We’ve all been there (if you haven’t, you suck), and, whether we were little kids or not-so-little adults, it’s a pretty horrifying situation.
I once had a friend who told me a story about how she had to pee so bad on a subway train that she thought her bladder was literally going to explode, but there was nowhere to go. After searching and searching for a public bathroom, she just wet her pants. And now she knows that about herself – if it gets bad enough, she always has the option to simply pee.
Anyway, these AskReddit stories are sort of like that. These 11 people all have learned something very unpleasant (but maybe valuable?) about themselves – you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
1. On a Train in India (or, a Huge Bummer)
Years ago I was living and interning in India for a summer and would usually take train trips to different cities over the weekends. One weekend I was on an overnight train and was stricken with a terrible case of food poisoning half way to my destination.
I made my way to the bathroom (squat toilet) on a moving train and proceeded to have explosive diarrhea while simultaneously vomiting all over the place. Shitting and barfing hovering over a squat toilet on a moving train with many hours to your destination really makes you take inventory of your situation.
I have never experienced that level of bathroom related drama in my life. It was the perfect storm.
2. “Shit happens”
If you don’t know anything about menses, let me preface this by stating that the first day of the cycle is often the worse, and most girls get the shits while on their period.
About two and a half years ago, I had just spent the night at my boyfriend’s apartment. I’m sleeping soundly in his arms when my stomach rumbles so loudly that it wakes me up. I feel the familiar pain of period cramps, but they’re nearly 10 days early, so I dismiss it as a side effect of my boyfriend’s sizeable penis. He’s still sleeping pretty soundly and we’re in the spooning position; I don’t want to wake him by moving, so I lay there for a while while my abdomen cramps. I have to fart and decide that I can get away with it…
HUGE MISTAKE
My brand new boyfriend wakes up to the sensation of something warm and wet on his dick. The smell doesn’t hit us until he lifts up the covers to investigate… it is a delightful mixture of poo and pennies. Apparently I covered his junk in a light spattering of both shit and period blood. I am on the side of the bed against the wall; he gets up so I can run to the bathroom. I sit up and the blood just pours out of me. On the mattress, the sheets… it’s just everywhere…
We sprint to the bathroom together and he starts the shower while I destroy his toilet. I have never, ever shit in front of someone before. I’m traumatized, just crying and pooping and pouring blood all at the same time. By the time I flushed the toilet, I’ve decided that I can never see him again.
And my boyfriend just laughs. Then comforts me, kisses me, tells me “shit happens,” then has sex with me in the shower. Needless to say, I married him.
3. Thai-Style Toilet
I was a 15 year old exchange student in Thailand. After a week of eating the local food without allowing my body to adjust from its natural Canadian habitat I found my self to be relatively constipated. One day I was travelling through a remote Thai village when I got a sudden urge to empty my bowels. Understandable considering I hadn’t shit in a week.
I asked a local to point me to a bathroom, and after a few minutes of and waddling I found the entrance to a Thai-style bathroom.
Now anyone who has ever used a Thai Toilet will realize that it can be very intimidating if never seen before. I, coming from a western country, had NO idea how to use this, and if I could have waited until I reached a western style excrement removing device,, I would have. Alas, the urge was too strong, and I commenced squatting.
I proceeded to unleash a hurricane of spicy-diarrhea stew into the dry toilet. A solid-liquid spray lasting for 15 or more seconds. After substantially loading up the toilet, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked around for toilet paper.
Well what do you know, there wasn’t any. Apparently you are supposed to bring your own wiping device, and I hadn’t known. The only 2 objects that could be utilized to help clean my drain-pipe were a grungy looking loofah and my hand. Opting to not risk contracting some communicable foreign disease from the loofah, I proceeded to use my hand to wipe up the slimy somewhat chunky mixture and rinsed it off under the tap.
Some may be shocked about how nonchalantly I just cleaned myself, but let me explain: I was DESPERATE. I felt like shit, I was panicking, and I had no idea what I was doing. So at that point it was an everything goes deal.
After wiping I guessed I was supposed to fill the bowl with the water from the bucket, so I did. However, my recent recipe of goulash had rendered draining the water (no flushing) impossible, so it ended up just filling to the top with murky brown stinky water.
By then I was on the verge of tears: I still felt sick, I was in a strange place, and I had no idea what I was doing. So I just opened the door to go outside…
And was greeted by a LINE of 8-13 year olds. I had apparently used a local school bathroom without realizing it, and they had just started their break. I turned bright red and just high tailed it out of there, leaving behind a steaming bowl of soup, a horrendous smell of partly digested chicken and pork, and a gaggle of middle school Thai kids.
Never felt so guilty and disgusted before… but I have also never felt a relief as satisfying as emptying ones bowels after a week of spicy asian food.
4. TAPE WORM
I lived in the country and would eat a lot of raw vegetables when I was very young (6-12). I started losing weight for some reason and my parents just thought it was because I was in a growth spurt or something. Then for 2 weeks I felt really bad, went to the doctor he gave me some anti-parasite meds and sent me home.
He failed to mention that I would be passing a humungous tape worm later that week and I freaked out when I was mid [poop] and could see this dark black snake looking thing coming out of my [butt]. I finished crapping but this thing wouldn’t come all the way out so I had to reach back and pull it the rest of the way out. (Gag!)
I didn’t tell anyone about it for years.
5. Visiting Family
Years and years ago when I was perhaps 14, my parents and I were driving from Ohio to Virginia to visit my uncle’s family. It’s not a super long drive, but it’s long enough that if you’re trying to get there on a deadline you might be holding your bodily functions for awhile.
So anyways, we’re approaching the town that they live in (can’t remember the name) and all of a sudden I have to shit. And I mean shit. Whatever was brewing in my aft end was about to turn small-town Virginia into the next Hiroshima if I didn’t find a toilet fast. So here I am sitting in the back seat of our truck, clenching my cheeks together so hard that they’re starting to go numb. I’m so terrified that if I relax those muscles I’m going to be wearing what I ate (8 to 10 hours ago). I voice my discomfort to my parents and ask how far away from the house we are and they tell me we’re ‘pretty close’. Fantastic. I’m also ‘pretty close’ to re-painting the interior of the truck a lovely shade of turd.
Finally, we arrive at the house and I immediately grab my bags and make a bee line for the front door, expecting to get the pleasantries over with and take a long overdue Fus Ro Dump in their bathroom. I knock on the door. Nothing. I knock again and there’s still nothing. None of us had cell phones at this point so we couldn’t call my aunt or uncle to see what was going on. At this point, my usually blue eyes are starting to turn brown and I tell my parents that if I don’t get to a toilet within the next 5 or 10 minutes my pants are going to be the setting for a fecal Holocaust. We decide to find a convenience store.
I sit in absolute agony for what feels like several eternities before we find the place that I would lay my brown monstrosity to rest. I don’t even know what the name of the place was. All I know is that I walked (read: waddled) in, looked to my right at the cashier, gave her a sheepish ‘I’m sorry I’m about to kill you with my stench’ look, and proceeded to the left where the bathroom was. I was in there spewing my frothy mess for a solid (heh) 20 minutes. And I’m not saying that I shit for a couple minutes and then sat recovering for the rest of the time; I mean shit was actually flying out of my ass for 20 minutes.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that my uncle was at work, his son was doing something at school, and my aunt and female cousin were across the fucking road at my cousin’s friend’s house. Why you would be out of your home when you’re expecting guests is beyond me.
6. Italian McDonalds
Once in Italy I was absolutely desperate to use the bathroom. I walked all over the city for a public restroom, getting more and more antsy about it. You know the pins and needles, shivering kind of desperate? Yeah, that bad. Eventually, I turned a corner and saw the golden arches of McDonald’s- I swear they were glowing and there were trumpets playing it was such a glorious sight.
I sprinted up to the store and into the bathrooms, sat down to do my thing, then realized there was no toilet paper. I thought, no worry, I can just use receipts. Open my wallet- nope, I’d cleaned it out the day before. I sit there for a while trying to decide if I really want to wipe myself with a 50. In the end I decide not to because I heard that all euros have drugs on them. And I don’t want to put any drugs down there.
Finally after much deliberation, I decided there was only one thing for it- I had to use my own underwear. Whipped them off, wiped clean, and disposed of them (in a bin, I didn’t flush them) and strutted out of there right into a lingerie shop to buy a new pair.
7. Ring of Fire
When I first moved to China, a group of really attractive Chinese girls that worked for our company decided to take me out to lunch before my first “welcome to company induction” class that evening. I wanted to make a good impression and be like all cool and stuff.
So we’re at the restaurant, and they tell me that originally they’re all from Sichuan province (known for its spicy food) and they ask if I like spicy food. Sure I say, the hotter the better. I’m really only trying to impress them, but i figure how hot can it be? So I tell them to order it as spicy as it can get, I love peppers! I want to eat it like they do, and some other idiotic stuff. They’re impressed and they order this meal that is literally coated in tiny shrivelled dark red peppers. It was hot and it brought tears to my eyes, but I put on a good show and ate everything.
A few hours later, I’m sitting in this orientation class, and my stomach rumbles and immediately I can feel the taste of the peppers in my mouth again and I feel like if a bathroom were present, i could make use of it. I look at the clock and see I still have 45 minutes and it would be rude to get up and leave. So I just decide to wait and concentrate on the lecture. About 15 minutes later, I am UNCOMFORTABLE and squirming around. I pass a bit of gas quietly to help relieve the pressure and it felt someone lit a match on my bunghole and the smell was instantly suffocating. One of those omg, no warning, blitzkrieg on the nose, bury your face in your shirt and lynch the guy responsible types.
Nobody figured out it was me but by this point I am in agony. I have 10 minutes to go and I’m almost sweating. My bunghole feels like Mount Doom and I’m afraid its going to start leaking sulphuric acid. Finally the class is dismissed and as professional as I can, hurry quickly to the mens room. As I rush in and begin to very loudly take care of business, my cell phone rings. This was back in the day when having ringtones were still cool. Mine at the time i had this painful incident? Ring of Fire
A few days later I was telling a buddy about my new found allergy to peppers and he’s like “Yep when you eat it, you think about it hot going in, but never how hot it will be coming out.”
8. Food Poisoning
I ate a slice of pizza one summer. It was a slice of buffalo chicken/blue cheese. I should have paid better attention, the ‘blue cheese’ on the pizza looked to be salad dressing. That had been sitting under a heat lamp for an undetermined amount of time. In July.
Yes, it was bad. I had gone to the bar that night, and was halfway through a beer when I realized “oh, this is food poisoning.” So I had to make the mad dash for home.
Which included A) a fifteen minute walk to the train station B) five minutes waiting for my train, C) a twenty minute train ride and D) a twenty minute walk home from the train station.
I knew that once I opened the floodgates, I wouldn’t be ale to move so I didn’t want to risk a public bathroom so I just clenched both ends and suffered. The worst was the last leg of it, when I was walking home from the train station. By then I was just looking for yards with big enough bushes for me to just go and befoul. Stupid suburbia.
I did make it home, and when I made it to the toilet I barfed for like twenty minutes. And then my ass blew up. All weekend, just puking and shitting and shivering and sweating for three days straight.
9. The Interview
Just a couple of weeks ago I had a job interview in Philly. I live in Pittsburgh, but I stayed with my girlfriend over the weekend to go to the interview on Monday morning. I get up and get ready to go get my car from the street so I could pack it up because I was going to head back to Pittsburgh after the interview. When I go to get my car its not there, after a little investigation I figured out it had been towed so I had to take my girlfriend’s car and pick up my car later.
So I am driving to the interview (about an hour away) and about 20 minutes and my coffee starts to kick in, and I say to myself, “I’ll get close the facility and then find a place to do my business.” So I’m driving along and I pass gas station after gas station, and fast food place after fast food place but I’m still about a half hour out so I decide to wait. Suddenly the chain of public restrooms ends and I’m left with the worst case of “Oh my God, I’ve gotta shit!” I’ve ever had. I keep driving all the while clenching for my life and telling myself “I’m not going to shit my pants” over and over all the while thinking “Oh my God, I’m gonna shit my pants.” I drive and drive and there is nothing, and its only getting worse, when finally I see a McDonald’s! “Ah I’m saved!” I park, run in only to find the bathrooms “Out of Order.” So I run out and look around and see there is another restaurant across the parking lot! Meanwhile its about 9:30 AM so most places aren’t open yet, but I’m encouraged by cars in the parking lot and lights on. I drive over, no dice, and I’m seriously considering doing the deed in a potted plant outside of the restaurant.
I tell myself “You are not going to shit your pants!” So I get back in the car and keep driving, as soon as I turn back on the road, just past the McDonald’s with the defunct bathrooms is a Dunkin’ Dounts! I run inside and proceed to drop the biggest deuce in my entire life saving my dignity and my suit. I then proceed to the interview as relaxed and confident as I ever was. Needless to say, I aced the interview because it was nothing compared to the fear of shitting my pants before the interview. They offered me the job on the spot and I’m moving to Philly next week, after spending two and half years with my girlfriend long distance.
10. “This experience made me a better person”
19 years old and staying at my Dad’s house for the weekend. I had come down with a stomach bug and was on the toilet every 5 minutes all afternoon just pushing this horrible liquid mess out of me.
At one point I run in and sit down quickly to let out whatever leviathan was next in line to escape my body, when I get that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach that I WILL be throwing up soon. My mouth is watering, the back of my throat is dropping, and I’m searching for a proper receptacle. I find a small mesh garbage can, but I don’t want to make “a mess” so I figure I’ll jump off the toilet, turn around vomit into it, then jump back on and finish the shitting aspect.
Pretty straightforward – so now I’m kneeling in front of my toilet with my pants down as my gut clenches up with the first waves of vomit. At the very instant I started vomiting every muscle in my body started clenching up and 3 gallons of liquid poopy sauce erupts from my ass all over my Dad’s bathroom.
I turn around and notice I have covered the entire wall, floor, rug, and even have hit parts of the ceiling with this ass explosion. I kind of just sit down and take it all in for a few minutes, but then realize I’m in the family’s main bathroom and my parents and sibling are all eating dinner not more than 3 feet from where this happened.
I hear a “Are you ok it sounds like you spilled water or something?” HAHA if only – so I spend the next two hours cleaning up everything with toilet paper. I didn’t want to ruin towels or anything.
I emerge 2 hours later with a spotless bathroom behind me, my Dad says “Damn son it really smells like crap in here.” I just agreed. This experience has made me a better person…
11. Bourbon St.
I ate too much fried food in New Orleans once and had the misfortune of trying to find a bathroom on Bourbon St. I finally found an unoccupied one, but the door was jammed into a slightly open state. I found that unacceptable. “Surely,” I thought, “There must be a bathroom in this fine Quarter that affords me the privacy to drop my deuces in peace and relative cleanliness.” Au contraire.
When it finally got to the point where I simply could not turn down a bathroom, the situation I found was as follows: A room the size of a closet with a trough for onesies, a small sink, and what may at some point have been a stall but was now merely a toilet sitting against the wall. God help me, I just had to deal with it. This is not where the story ends, for this was no mere drop and dash session.
I remember two of my fellow pilgrims who came in to do their deeds while I was stuck on the throne. The first was a frat boy who glanced briefly at me, started cracking up, then said (with genuine empathy), “Dude, that sucks.” The second was a muscular Eastern European man. He walked in, stopped at the sink, and stared at me for a second. He looked at my pants on the floor, then at the pained expression on my face. Then he said, softly, sternly, “Your business is your business. My business is my business. Okay?” I nodded. Then he took out a baggy of coke, snorted some, gave me a curt nod, and walked out.
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