Juice and China Poops

I spent almost the entirety of yesterday night in a small, crowded booth, trying to pander my wares to any passerby who happened upon us at the park.

"Hi! Want a juice?"

"Well hello there! Juice for your troubles?"

"...please, buy some of this shit.'

Hey, a jobs a job...right?

It had become yet another day where I had mild fatigue from working from dawn until dusk* and had made it a habit of forgetting to ear any proper meals. This usually results in me drinking copious amounts of coffee and drinking whatever leftover juice I can get. Newsflash: a diuretic mixed with a blast of fiber doesn't bode well for your insides. It actually bodes ill. But not, like, black plague ill.

When the night finally ended, I was able to finally relieve myself since 1) I will avoid using a public port-o-potty at all costs, and 2) I can do what I want even if it probably hurts my insides slowly. This was a bittersweet feeling as the aforementioned coffee and juice had done their work and basically resigned me to the porcelain throne for a bit. In that moment, I had a slight moment of deja vu upon trying to squat over a Chinese hole in the floor in an establishment that struggled to call it self a bar.

Let's go back to Beijing. I had decided to do a little bit of traveling with my time in China and had a few short days in Beijing with my friends, and the rest I wandered around by myself .** The first night was a slight celebration as none of us had been on vacation for awhile and we found the best comfort food we could think of: Mexican cuisine.

For a place that was smack dab in the middle of a Chinese city, I was actually impressed by my burrito and nachos that showed up on my plate. Like a true American, I scarfed everything down as fast as I could, while ignoring the fact that the hot sauce on the side was a little hotter than I was used to. But ignoring did the trick, because nothing was going to stand between me and a little slice of home.

After our assorted Tex-Mex, the group of us decided to try and find a place to sit down. We all ended up going into a small building across the street, whose stairs winded up all over the place; each landing a different bar or club. Eventually we settled on one near the third or fourth floor and sat down while we watched some locals play some kind of drinking game involving dice (Note: I actually looked it up and the game is called, "Liar's Dice." You can see how to play if you want.) The game itself was rather tame, other than the other drunk Chinese people everywhere (one of which had decided that he wanted to lift up his shirt and rub his stomach on my friend. I don't think that was her favorite part.) That was, until my stomach began to rumble.

No, no, no, no, no...

Now really wasn't the time for this. I had only gotten sick a handful of times during my stay in Asia and I had considered myself lucky since the public toilet situation was...messy (Chinese restrooms were never kept up and were usually covered in all kinds of human garbage. I usually tried to resign to holding it wherever I went, but the truth of the matter is, if I wanted to go, I could have in the street like a lot of people decided to. Mostly drunk men and babies.).

I was petrified. I had always applauded by iron bowels and their ability to hold it, but this time the flood gates were open and I needed to prepare for the impending torrent. I quietly excused myself from the table and headed to what most resembled a bathroom. I sidled past all the other people waiting around the toilets and walked into a stall, to behold my worst nightmare: the squatter.

Despite being in a relatively "American" part of town, this place still went by Chinese habits of having a flat toilet in the floor that you had to squat over. While I had never mastered the art of the "squat" (Imagine me over a toilet falling back and force while trying not to touch my hands on the floor, but touching my hands on the floor so I didn't fall into the small poop hole. Actually, don't imagine that.), I was really banking on all of my practice to get me through this one, especially since this toilet was covered in lord knows what.***

While I rushed into the stall and quickly relieved myself (while maintaining most of my balance), I glanced up to where I imagined toilet paper would be if there had even been a dispenser. My heart sunk to the bottom of my toes. This was yet another reason I always avoided public restrooms and was always cautioned to bring tissues with me wherever I went. I sat and pondered for a second what I was going to have to do and resolved for one option. With an odd maneuver, I fanagled the underwear I was wearing out of my pants, and used them to finish the job. I hesitated a little as this was a pair I had grown fond of over our time together. They had never shrunk, never bunched, and had always looked relatively new. But I knew what had to be done. I said a silent goodbye and the deed was done. It was like leaving a fallen soldier behind as I walked away from the bathroom; semi-unscathed, but leaving behind a comrade that had done his duty...dutifully.

I wandered back to my table, feeling slightly uncomfortable about what had just occurred and sat down to try and come back to some sense of normalcy. Upon sitting down, I realized something wasn't right. Yup, something had been missed. I continued to sit and participate in the conversation until I couldn't stand it any longer and politely excused myself once again. Things might have actually been fine, but my anxiety of having any kind of..stench wafting up around me was too unbearable.

Knowing that there wasn't any kind of wiping material  in the bathroom, I decided I needed a new strategy. I couldn't let anyone I was with know what was happening, so I pretended to head to the bathroom, only to double back and leave the bar when I was sure no one was looking. As I walked out the door, I surveyed my options quickly: this building was only full of other bars, and one of them was bound to have...something. I walked into the bar across the landing and, as luck would have it, there was an empty table with a giant pile of napkins. It was as if the light shining down on them was a beacon from heaven itself, beckoning me to take them.

Before anyone there knew what was going on, I snatched as many as I could carry and headed back into the other bar where I fast-walked past our table and straight into the bathroom section.

Never had I felt such sweet relief.

I was able to leave my discarded napkins aside and walk out of the small stall with my head held high, my pants a normal scent, and my dignity still slightly intact. My undergarment comrade had paid the price for my Mexican food-induced negligence, but I would remember his sacrifice in times to come. It was a small price to pay for a possible brown blemish on my spotless record.




*I hesitate to say dusk since there was no dusk about it. The sun had set long before I was done working and had probably taken an ambien and was about to sleepwalk in on their roommate and pee in their hamper. Or something like that.
**I realize in hindsight that I totally could have been murdered, killed, body snatched, organ stealed(?), but at the time I really didn't think about it. But hey, I survived, right?
***You know exactly what.