Poo!

Sept. 4, 2008 5 a.m.

I am somewhere between awake and dreaming. I feel the remnants of a lover beside me. Moisture. Heat against my leg. My belly. I linger. I rest. I wait for sleep to dissolve to once again be awash in our desires. My yearning opens my eyes…I am curious to see who lays beside me. Who has caressed my body to such an outpouring of lust?

Awake now I find I am alone. Yet the wetness is still about me. I think of young boys who surprise themselves with wet dreams.

Surely I am far too old for this kind of thing. I look further across the bed. No one. I look beneath the sparking white Egyptian cotton duvet. I find her.

A fucking empty ileostomy bag! I lay in a puddle of poop. I jump up only to have the Lil Squirt spew across the covers some more. I am in action tearing the sheets from the bed while she drips her fluids down my belly, my leg and splatters on the floor.

Jesus I am making more mess.
Grab a cloth and press it into me. Attempting to contain it… is like trying to stop an arterial wound. My senses are more alert as I see the complicated mess I am in. I grab the resting bag from my poo soaked sheets. It’s covered. Yet I clip it on and head toward the bathroom where a clean one sits tucked away. I discard the sleeping bag and adorn myself with a clean one. It sits upon my pooped up belly.

I rush back to the bedroom strip the bed. And take the bottom poop puddled sheet and toss it in the toilet. Run back and pull the mattress cover (Jenny so generously let me borrow) off and toss it in the bathtub turn the cold water on blast. Return to grab the duvet trying to keep the poo stain in one place…. rush back to the bathroom and put that part in the sink with cold water gushing. Return to the bedroom to surprisingly find the pillowcase has not escaped…back to the bathroom…where do I put it…I stand there trying to figure out where to put it…then I look down and the thick luxurious snow white bath mat has not escaped the Lil Squirt's drippings. Overwhelmed I throw everything into the bathtub. Finally I have all my shit soaking.

Then I look down…. way down and I see I am covered from head to toe. I have to shower. I look to the bathtub…. there is no room for me…. I could cry…. then I remember a very wise woman Liz White saying to me…its only shit!

My methodical brain kicks in. Clean the bedding first…. I start with what’s in the tub…run downstairs to get the spray and wash. (At this level of excretion poo is really acidic and stains worse than anything). Duvet first…. spray, scrub, scrub, scrub. Pillow cases…. spray, scrub, scrub, scrub. Run down to the basement with watery poo dripping like an oil leak from a car. I fill the washer putting anything and everything that has anything with laundry written on it in the water. OK one load started.

Head upstairs and like Hansel and Gretel follow my droppings back to the bathroom. Next the sheet in the toilet.

Holy Mother of Jesus. Spray, scrub, spray, scrub and scrub some more. Fling it to the far reaches of the tub to scrub and spray and scrub the white almost out of the mattress cover. Now where to put it so it does not re-pooped on. Ah the tub in the basement is logical cuz it will go in after the duvet is done. Run downstairs leaving my Hansel and Gretel markings. Stand next to the sink…realize the washer empties into the tub…catastrophe diverted. Good. Now where can I put it as the watery poo puddles on the basement floor. With my deer in the headlights stare I gaze upon and beyond a bucket…some part of my brain un-dissociates and Eureka a place to put the Motherfooking load.

Do my Hansel and Gretel dance back upstairs…. the mat…. it weights a ton with poo and now water soaked. More spraying and scrubbing…. I think of Cinderella while on my knees… (a half hour ago I thought I had been asleep with my knightess in shining armour…HA! Ain't a glass slipper fitting on these shit-encrusted toes.) The mat cleaned I have to find another spot…ah the laundry basket it has a solid bottom and is partial enclosed…tho there is a lot of water in this mat…to hell with it…. in the basket it goes. Now everyone is lined up downstairs to wait their turn in the washer.

Finally I can get in the shower. I remove the bag so I can get all the poo collected around the stoma clean… I wash and scrub and scrub and wash…. the Squirt is still squirting and I am having to clean different parts of my body over and over…I wait for a lull…. grab a face clothe stuff down Lil Squirt mouth and dry as quick as I can…. and with the timing of an Olympic runner coming out of the blocks my timing is exquisite as I click the bag back on.

Its now 7a.m. The store will be open. I buy a coffee and cigarettes…. today I will smoke. I come home…move the computer outside and begin writing the tale of my shitty lover as my duvet, mattress cover, bottom sheet, 5 pillow, bath mat, and my treasured mattress pad (found it had stained too) flaps in the wind.

Moral of the story:
Beware of your own shit!


Ps. Did I ever tell you about the time my niece was overdue with her first child and I dreamt her water broke. As I woke I thought I bet it was a message Cindy has had her baby…. a second later I realized I am in a pool of water…the cap to my water bottle had come loose during the night. My water had broken not Cindy's.