Eat, shit, sleep, and die (for Xmastime)

As we all know (and spend most of our lives trying to forget), our body has its own agenda and no matter what we do, it will have its way. Its agenda, as far as I can tell, is pretty simple: eat, shit, sleep, and die (for brevity's sake, and alliteration, I include drinking under "eating" and pissing under "shitting"). Nothing reminds us more dramatically of this fact than a bout of diarrhea (vomiting is also a good reminder, and terminal illness the best, but, fortunately, a lot of us will be spared that horrible fate). I was rudely awakened to the body's demands, yet again, the other night when I was caught unawares and outdoors, with my guts squirming, a good distance from my apartment.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to exercise my way out of my annual post-winter funk by walking for about an hour in a nearby park (I've given up the running thing mainly because, at 46, I no longer feel I'm in contention for the Olympics and because I hate every minute of it). Each year at this time, I emerge to move about outdoors (I don't believe in gyms) and shake off the impending depression that I'm sure would descend if I continued to live like a shut-in year round. So, there I was the other night, like some exercise nut, pounding the pavement in a virtually empty park due to the cold wind blowing in off of Newark Bay, when my stomach began to rumble. A smarter person would have cut their exercise routine short to make it back to their apartment in time to take care of business, but I was not that person. A smarter person would have approached the man closing the park's public restrooms and asked politely if he could use the facilities before he locked the door, but I was not that person either. No, I was the guy in control. Mind over matter and all that. I could keep a tight asshole with the best of them, I thought. I must have been about a mile from home when it dawned on me that things were a little more serious than I had suspected. As the sweat began to bead on my brow, I began searching for a dark corner of the park where I could let nature take its course. I had gotten the shits once before in the park years ago, but that was during the summer months when the foliage provided deeper cover. To make matters worse, there was a cop car parked within sight of the area I had in mind (the same area that had previously spared me the ignominy of shitting myself). When I saw the wide trunks of a group of trees providing the darkest shadows for my darkest of deeds, I ducked behind one and dropped my drawers. There's nothing quite like being naked (even if it's just below the waist) in the great outdoors, is there? The cooling breeze to the nether region, the collective unconscious memory of our primal roots as naked brutes scrambling around in the dirt like animals. I had no time for any of that. I parked my back against a tree trunk and let fly as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And it was! Triumphant trumpets blared, celestial choirs rejoiced in song (all in my head, of course)! All was right again! I briefly recalled a former boss of mine who used to moan with pleasure whenever he took a dump. I think I finally understood what that was all about. Joyous thoughts such as these filled my mind as I resumed the upright position and pulled my pants back up. I think I even smiled to myself as I glimpsed over my shoulder the averted catastrophe I had left slumping in a heap against the tree. But in all this merriment, I failed to remember the usual course of my bouts with diarrhea: first wave, solid; second wave, liquid. Maybe I would have walked with a little more urgency if I remembered this instead of sauntering along, almost drunkenly, with relief. But, as we all know (and spend most of our lives trying to forget), there is no true relief in this life; only brief interludes before the ax finally falls. This point was brought home with stark terror as I bounded up the stairs to my apartment building fearing I would make a mess in the lobby or along the staircase. Fortunately, that didn't happen. Unfortunately, it wasn't a complete success either. Another one of life's lessons, I guess.