Not the first time…

Not the first time I joined the club, but definitely the most memorable time I joined the brown pant club was one of the worst days of my life. No one died and frankly there wasn’t a global pandemic so scales of worst days probably need to be redefined but as far as days went, this one definitely left a stain on the bowl.

I was a young man, just starting my career and I had already shuttered my first company with 30k of personal debt, lost my first job during the .com bubble burst, and had just got dropped from my second job – post bubble. I awoke with hope, despite the obvious shit show that was hovering just out of my line of sight. You see, I was going to have lunch with one of the smartest people I knew. Another entrepreneur, but unlike myself, a successful one. He had already sold one company at the time and he would go on to sell another, allowing him to live the dream. At this time I was just hoping to get a free lunch and perhaps a lead on a possible job. Turns out that when you have 30k in personal debt, no job, and no prospects that the bar isn’t terrifically high for hope. In fact, I was in such high spirits that I chose today, of all days, to experiment with my first foray into probiotics. What the hell I thought, perhaps this is the beginning of a new me, one that lives with a healthy gut. Yeah, I can be that guy, I thought.

I was wrong.

I met my friend at a little restaurant in downtown Chicago after taking the ‘L’ down. We had a lovely little meal of fried goodness and yes, he paid (huzzah). After walking out of the restaurant, he offered to give me a tour of his new office at some schmancy new tech firm. Marvelous, I thought. Things are going to plan, I will walk into this office and impress the team with my wit and obvious genius. They will offer me a gig on the spot and my new career will be OFF! This is when the day took an abrupt left turn straight into the proverbial shitter.

After leaving the restaurant I felt a gurgle in my murgle, a little touch of the green apple quick step tickled my sphincters, but surely it wasn’t anything severe. This is the new me, I thought. HEALTHY GUT ME. I can tough it out, besides my new career awaits. All I need to do is grab it by the balls. Alas, the only balls I was to be grabbing would be my own, for on the walk to the office I trusted too much.

We have all done it, I was certain I could contain the fury. I misjudged, and the fart that I anticipated turned to the shart I didn’t even know to fear. I leaked like a cracked bottle and pasted my pants in the damn street while walking to his office.

I stayed cool though, didn’t let on at all, save the momentary look of abject terror and shock that crossed my face. I penguin walked the rest of the way to the office desperately clamping my ass cheeks together as if my future depended on it. All the while smiling and sweating, keeping up conversations on the merits of RSS. I should have gotten a fucking Oscar for that performance. Upon arriving at the office I delicately asked to visit the gents and was able to sneak away before anyone noticed what I must assume was a very distinct odor starting about my person.

In the loo I was certain this was the end, I made my way to the first stall I could, dropped trow and held on for dear life. You see the shart wasn’t the end, no. The shart was the opening volley in the oncoming storm and the only thing keeping it in was the stalwart efforts of my asshole and, what in retrospect, was a Herculean effort of will. However, when I reached that glorious shitter I cried havoc and let loose the dogs of war so to speak. I rode the porcelain pony like a fucking bull for my 8 seconds, and dear gods, if I had any water left in me I would have fucking cried. After it was all over, I gently picked up my distended arsehole and shoved it back up my ass while I proceeded to clean up as best as I could. I tossed my underwear in the bin (I am sorry to the poor janitor that day) as it was the first lost artifact in the war with my GI tract that day. My trousers weren’t ruined.. yet so I put them back on, washed up and went back to my friend, where I took my leave in the most political manner I could.

Commando on the ‘L’ ride home however, I discovered something I couldn’t have imagined… I wasn’t empty. I couldn’t hold it. It had to be gas only. Surely I was empty. I must be. But no, I wasn’t, and now my glorious khakis took their first real hit in the war. So there I sat, my ass cheeks glued together with a patina of ass juice and me stewing in it. After the 45 minute train ride home, and 4 block waddle to my apartment I was once again able to clean off. I threw my pants into the wash and jumped into my shower to rinse off the shame, shit and tears. Upon exiting the shower, however I was to discover that my day didn’t end yet and my washing machine had broken.

I stared, gobsmacked, at the literal shit soup that my dirty khakis and washing machine had created. It had already started to smell as it mixed with the hot steamy shower. The odor of salty tears and excrement stew is something that I will never forget. However, I couldn’t give up on my mother fucking khaki’s. Remember, I was unemployed and frankly unable to imagine having enough money to buy new pants in the near term. So I rolled up my sleeves and fished out my soaked drawers like a fat shit tea bag in a giant mug of shit tea. I loaded those khakis into my laundry basket and tromped outside, thinking that I could wash them in the building’s communal laundry machine in the basement. However, I didn’t account for the additional weight added to the pants and it’s impact on my 5 dollar laundry basket from Walgreens. Once outside, my basket broke spilling what felt like 50 pounds of literal shitty khaki into a mud puddle.

I gave up.

I left the mother fucking khaki’s in the puddle and as far as I know they are still there to this day, and that’s my brown pant club story.