One Post About Poop, One Post About Strippers

I had a conference call scheduled today at 11:00. Unfortunately, I hadn't had a chance to take my morning bathroom break yet, and the call promised to be a difficult one. I dialed in to the number, and found that it was just hold music. The host hadn't started the call yet.

Stuffing the phone in my pocket and the ear bud in my ear, I said a quick prayer to make my movement a quick and easy one. I figured I could get in, do my business, and then chime in on the call while they were still doing introductions and pleasantries.

Fast forward 45 minutes. I'm on my second toilet of the morning, wishing away stomach spasms and the accompanying nastiness. Over the next 90 minutes, there would be two more toilets.

If you know me, you will realize that I'm dying to give detail after gory detail about my diarrhea. But in order to keep it from getting too gross, I'll keep it to two more quick details.

It looked like wet sand, but brownish-green. In fact, it was the greenest poo that I've ever seen. (I ate a lot of cole slaw last night. Cabbage?)

It came on suddenly and strongly enough, that I had to discard my underwear in a gas station restroom today.

I went home, showered, and changed, and my little problem gradually subsided. So when your work day is hectic, take a little time for caution. Think before you pray. And pay good attention to your time zone conversions. I was on the call four hours ahead of when I needed to be. There was no need at all to pray for the loosey-gooseys. We have a coworker who has a really nice personal milestone coming up. The nicest member of our team sent the rest of us an email suggesting that we send some sort of gesture of congratulations. She intended a gift or perhaps a cocktail hour after work one evening. The only response she got back asked, "Are you suggesting that we take him to a gentleman's club?" I can just picture the scene. There are ten of us sitting around a table. On the table top a stripper goes through her motions. Although the majority of the crowd is young men (and middle aged men like me who still think young), there are also a grandmother and a young lady at the table. Eight of us shift our weight uncomfortably, wondering how to behave and where the appropriate place for our eyes to focus in this co-ed mix of coworkers. Jeremy sits comfortably in the middle, oblivious to everyone's discomfort, cooly tucking singles into the dancer's garter while trying to chat it up with her. Meanwhile, Alan behaves like a member of the Arsenio Hall audience of circa 2001, pumping a fist above his head while shouting "WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF" every time the dancer's buttocks come near his face. (And just to be really clear, this "Jeremy" and "Alan" are fictional characters that I made up, bearing almost no resemblance to the coworkers of mine who coincidentally share those same first names.) There's a really funny facet about the gentlemen's clubs in the south part of Baton Rouge. It used to be that if you followed Airline Highway south out of town, you got more and more rural, and there was a stretch that was chock-full of titty bars. I guess it was close enough to town for the young guys to make the drive, but far enough out that the rent was cheap. Over the years, the mainstream subdivisions moved farther and farther south, taking grocery stores, day cares, and strip malls along with them. Today, the strippers drive into busy parking lots, and go into their establishment which is right in the middle of Blockbusters, chain restaurants, laundry mats, and all other things suburban. If those places can hang on, it will be really convenient for that group of future strippers who are today the little girls of the young families who live out in those suburbs. That reminds me of something else funny that I read earlier this week. Bill Simmons started giving his wife a weekly sidebar on one of his columns on espn.com. This is from her sidebar this week.

The "Deal or No Deal" models bug me because they peek into the suitcases now and milk their 10 seconds for all it's worth. Ladies, just shut your trap, open the case and be thankful you're not clinging to a stripper's pole anymore.

I hadn't really thought about it, but that is an annoying facet of that show. It used to be just once or twice a show that they would do that, but now, it's every single box. Buncha monkeys is what they are. Really good looking monkeys, but monkeys nevertheless. Deal or No Deal has passed American Idol as the show that I have least interest in watching, but am strangely unable to turn off if I happen to catch a little by accident.