So it’s back to Los Angeles with this post. Before we begin the festivities, let me give you some background on my poop behaviour. I am fairly regular guy. I am rarely constipated. I poop about once a day on average and it’s completely normal for me to poop more than once a day. For example, I pooped twice today. With that in mind, let us begin.
I flew out to Los Angeles on a Monday. Sometime late on the day before, the Sunday, I pooped. It was probably in the evening when I did that, possibly around midnight. Since my flight was leaving around 4pm the next day, I was hoping that I might poop once more before flying. I try to make sure I poop before I leave for the airport for several reasons. First, it’s just so inconvenient when you need to poop while in the process of traveling. Pooping at the airport isn’t ideal. If you’re unlucky enough to need to poop while you’re boarding, that’s hell on earth. You can’t grin and bear it and wait until the plane takes off, gets to altitude, and only when the captain turns off the seat belt sign can you dash off to that cramped bathroom to unleash your bowels. What a nightmare! That’s not for me, so you can see why I like to empty the tank before flying.
Unfortunately, no poops came out of me before my flight to Los Angeles. That was ok, because I had a great flight and a smooth ride out to the apartment that I was staying at. Now I am sometimes prone to what’s called traveler’s constipation. My body gets a bit weirded out by new surroundings and can’t get comfortable enough to poop. For example, in London, I arrived early on Saturday morning and didn’t poop until sometime on Sunday afternoon. Then I was as regular as a Japanese bullet train.
So it did not cause me any concern when Monday came and went and my bowels went unmoved. I was, after all, in a new city and my body needed to adjust. Plus, I also had a normal sized breakfast, lunch, and dinner (in Los Angeles) and I was sure things would be moving along on Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning, I woke up and I went to Jack in the Box with my friend for breakfast. I had a massive, greasy breakfast sandwich which I brought back to the apartment with me. I ate that with a nice cup of green tea. Now normally, that would be enough for me get the waste disposal going. Thirty minutes afterwards though, I felt nothing happening and I knew it was time to go to the first day of E3.
When I began to get hungry for lunch, I ate a large, deli-style sandwich, where the meat is several inches thick. I knew I might have to poop at E3 but I was ok with that because the Los Angeles Convention Centre has a ton of washrooms and for the most part, they’re clean enough for me. After devouring lunch, still nothing was happening so I continued to enjoy a wonderful afternoon of video games, lights, and sounds. I wasn’t uncomfortable or anything so I was having a great time.
Dinner time rolled around and E3 was closing up for the day. My friend and I headed off to a nearby restaurant for dinner. There were salads on the menu and I knew that probably was a good choice but there was also steak. Foolishly, I chose a reasonably sized steak with fries. The steak was merely ok but I ate all of it. At this point, I was expecting at least a tinge of movement down below but I felt nothing. I was still comfortable.
My friend and I decided to head back to our apartment after dinner. We rested for a bit, changed our clothes, and then took an Uber to a hotel that was popular amongst game developers at E3. We stayed at the hotel bar for about two hours or so, drinking and talking. After midnight, I was getting hungry again. Using Google Maps, I found this 24 hour diner that served breakfast about two blocks from the hotel.
At the diner, I ordered a platter that had three scrambled eggs, five pieces of bacon, hash browns, and two pieces of toast. I was really hungry so I basically ate that whole thing. Now keep in mind, I hadn’t poop since Sunday night and it was now the early morning hours of Wednesday morning. By my count, it was over 48 hours since I had last had a bowel movement, which was incredibly out of character for me. Yet I felt no discomfort even after eating this wonderful breakfast meal. My friend and I took an Uber home. I was hoping that I might feel the need to poop once back at the apartment but nothing happened so I went to bed.
Wednesday morning was when things started to happen. We woke up late because we’d been drinking the night before and we got back well past 2am. I didn’t feel like eating breakfast so I made myself a cup of green tea. I might have eaten half a small granola bar.
My friend wanted to take a small detour before heading out to E3 for the day. He wanted to see a building downtown where they had filmed a bit of Blade Runner. I thought that would be cool, so off we went. When we got to the building, I finally felt the accumulated food that I had been piling away into my body for close to three days. I felt bloated and uncomfortable. Mentally, I was going over all the food that I had stuffed into my body since my last poop. I was frankly amazed at how much was in me. Though I was uncomfortable, I did not feel like pooping though. Damn!
The tour of the building didn’t last very long so my friend wanted to go to the Grand Central Market nearby for lunch. It’s this cool place where you can get different types of food in a historic marketplace. It’s very popular with locals and tourists alike. While my friend was starving for lunch, I could not think about putting more food into my body. Instead, I got to watch my friend eat his breakfast burrito for lunch.
With lunch done, we took an Uber to E3. We decided to split up because our video game tastes are somewhat different. This way both of us could concentrate on what we wanted to see. I told my friend that I hoped to have pooped the next time we saw each other. It took another two hours or so of wandering the show floor before I finally felt the urgent need to poop.
I had prepared for this since I knew pooping at E3 was an eventuality. I avoided all the popular and well-used washrooms. The ones outside halls or just inside the halls are well trafficked so I knew to avoid those. The upper floors of the convention centre have meeting rooms. These are areas where companies can conduct the actual business of video games. Since there’s really nothing for the average gamer or consumer to see up there, the upper floors are relatively deserted. That’s where I walked up to with a quiet and confident purpose.
I found an empty men’s bathroom where there was a comically large handicapped stall. It was massive. Imagine a large room with a toilet tucked into one corner, this was the stall I was in. By now, the urge to evacuate my incredibly full bowels was strong and could not be denied. It was about 4pm on Wednesday and I had not pooped since around Sunday evening. I whipped off my shorts, sat down, and closed my eyes.
There was but the briefest moment of pain coming from my butt and then just relief; waves and waves of relief. It was so odd. One second the toilet bowl was empty and the next microsecond it was not empty, far from it actually. It was all over in less than thirty seconds. I had to sit there for a minute just to let my body recover and to just enjoy the relief. It was so good.
A part of me wanted to take a picture of what I saw in the bowl but I decided it was far too gruesome for me or anyone else really to witness again. I cleaned myself up, washed my hands, and walked out of the bathroom.
I was a new person. I felt light as feather. I didn’t walk anymore, I glided above the ground with the grace of a dancer. I wanted to say there was a tremendous load off my shoulders but we all know that’s not where the problem was. I texted my friend that I had succeeded. The remaining two hours of E3 that day was a pure delight.
The next day was Thursday and I pooped again that morning at the apartment. We left Los Angeles that night at 8pm. I only pooped twice while I was in Los Angeles between Monday night and Thursday night. What an ordeal that first one was. Thanks for reading folks.