Some time back, a dear friend’s mother, who runs the Wisconsin Chapter of the Weston Price Foundation, invited me to one of their meetings. The minute I walked in and sat down, I met a woman named Mary. Instead of the pleasantries that are exchanged between newly made acquaintances, she told me bluntly, “You need The Colon Cleanse.”

Could she just tell by the way I looked that I was constipated? My self image immediately dropped. How could she tell? What does a constipated person look like? Me, obviously.

I found out at this meeting that healthy persons are supposed to have a bowel movement for every meal eatten. I was only pooping about every three days and eating a lot more than that.

After learning more about what all goes on inside us, between eating and eliminating, I realized I had a problem and I wanted it fixed immediately.

I went out and bought The Colon Cleanse. It consisted of bottles of this and that to take orally for one week. It’s supposed to scour your intestines and colon clean with hull fibers, then a clay is administered to draw toxins out of the walls of the colon and is rinsed away with water. Sounds great, right? Exactly like a facial except for your colon.

Some reported to have passed toys and coins that they swallowed as children with The Colon Cleanse. Others found rainbows of crayons that they ate as kids come out in their stools. I curiously wondered what would come out of me.

I made it though the first “hull fiber” section of the cleanse successfully (no crayons or toys thankfully). It was the “clay” section that didn’t go as planned. I was drinking tons of water, but it apparently wasn’t enough. I had clay stuck in my butt.

Unfortunately, I was at work when I felt the urge to finally rid my bowels of the clay. There was a meeting going on with clients from all over the states and the meeting room just happened to be adjacent to our bathroom (paper thin walls). I didn’t want to create a scene with all the noise that could possibly come out of me in the process of eliminating the clay. If there was a symphony in my butt, I felt the trumpet section was raising their horns to play, loud.

I ran to the next floor down, hoping to find an empty spot on the pot. Occupied.

Down another fight of steps, I spotted that the bathroom on the first floor was open. I walked swiftly through the shipping area, flying past Charlie, the man in charge of shipping, and into the bathroom. Although I was embarrassed that Charlie was doing his work right outside the door, I figured it was better him than a room full of clients.

It took a good twenty minutes to do what I needed to do. For a moment, I thought I was going to have to call for help, but it was a relief that I didn’t; I don’t think Charlie would’ve handled the situation very well and he was the only one within an earshot.

I felt much better after and went back to work.

It was nearing the end of the day when my boss approached, “I need you to stay after work for a talk.”

Whenever my boss said that, it was never good.

I nervously stayed behind while everyone punched the clock and left the building. She led me to a private area of the warehouse where she then proceeded to open her eyes big and scary and said, “I received a report from Charlie that you are spending a lot of time messing around in the bathroom on the first floor. What are you doing in there? Do we not give you enough to do?”

“No, there’s plenty for me to do thanks,” I really didn’t want to have to go there.

She wanted more of an answer, “What are you doing in that bathroom? Why can’t you use ours?”

I immediately became very flustered. Was she seriously asking me what I was doing IN THE BATHROOM? What does anyone do in the bathroom?

Even worse, what did she think I was doing in there?

I was cornered into telling the truth and I saw no way to tactfully explain that I had clay stuck in my ass, so that’s exactly what I told her.

I was forced to spill the dirty details of my very personal experience.

New ruled were enforced:

If I ever expected to take longer than five minutes in the bathroom, I would have to inform her of what I was going to do and punch out to do it.

I obeyed…shyly at first with, “I’m going to the bathroom,” (one eyebrow raised).

After some time passed, I began to feel a loss of dignity every time I had to announce my duties and punch the clock. I witnessed others in the bathroom and resented that they didn’t have to punch out to do their thing. Shouldn’t every human be able to wander off to do their business without any questions asked?

My resentment began to swell into larger and more grandiose announcements of my “bathroom breaks” and eventually, everyone in the building knew about my butt problems and when and where I would be pooping and it became no big deal, but I couldn’t help feeling like the lowest woman on the totem pole, along with the Doberman that slept under my boss’s desk, both of us making a scene to be let out or make our way down the hall and into the bathroom.

So, the story goes, of how it came to be that I’m alright with the fact that I poop and you poop, and whether you want to say it loud and clear, admit it or not, poop happens, just like the rain and the thunder, what goes up, must come down, and what goes in, eventually comes out, and so did I one fine day… with a box in my arms and a smile on my face, I bade my boss farewell, not because of the poop, but for other things, that piled up like poop, until I exploded, but that’s a story for another time.

How is it pooping at your office?

Up tomorrow:

Brace To Take Off: Pooping On The Plane.