Carrying My Poop

As we all know, I am prone to moments of genius.

Those moments, however, are counter balanced by times of questionable intelligence and a level of comedic idiocy that are unparalleled by most womankind. Recently I had such a moment.

In an effort to continue a healthy-eating lifestyle, which I recently reinstated after setting a land speed record for weight gain while taking a few weeks “off” (read eating everything in sight) at the end of triathlon racing season, I had incorporated plain baked sweet potatoes (yams) into my diet. These gems are a "super-food" really. High in fiber and vitamins and low in calories, they dominate the root vegetable category in these criteria. I am so proud of my efforts to learn to like this wonderful form of nutrition.

For ease of lunch preparation and consumption, my usual procedure is to bake the yams whole, then skin them and place one whole yam in a translucent Glad container. I place several Glad containers in the refrigerator where they can be easily accessed for speedy lunch preparation.

Today was just such a day where my preparation paid off. I grabbed a sweet potato out of the refrigerator, popped it my insulated lunch sack and off to work I went.

When I was ready for my lunch break, I grabbed my sweet potato out of my insulated bag at my desk and headed to the 2nd floor kitchen to heat it up, add some salt, come back to my desk and enjoy. Being the multi-tasking sort it dawned on me that I should make a quick pit-stop en route to the 2nd floor kitchen to take care of bathroom business.

Out of my office, down the hall I dashed into the empty bathroom facility and into a stall. I set my oh-so-nutritious lunch on the back of the toilet tank. While doing my business, the bathroom becomes a beehive of activity as the other four previously unoccupied stalls become inhabited. And of course, for the first time in my history of working for this company we suddenly have a bathroom "rush". Additional women have come in to the bathroom, only to find no stall available, and a line is now forming in the small room.

I finish up, stand to leave my stall, reach around and grab my lunch container only to stop in mid swivel as I realize what I'm about to do. I am about to emerge from a bathroom stall in front of all these women carrying a see-through plastic container holding a long cylindrical-shaped brown/orange object. .......... Now what?

If I stay in the stall and wait for the bathroom to empty I've now become the "gray-slacked black-booted (with the distinctive buckle) woman with a constipation problem." If I leave the stall I cannot rush past everyone like a wide receiver covering my quarry and rushing past the defensive line. Then I'm the "lady that doesn't wash her hands after she uses the toilet." A third choice is to leave the stall, proceed to the counter, where I will have to set my transparent container ON THE COUNTER while I wash and dry my hands and catch the horrified reflections of the other bathroom goers when they spy my parcel. I then become the “woman who”, for whatever stool-sample reason, “carries her poop.” Like that's not bad enough. What happens when one of them sees me proceed to the kitchen and pop it in the microwave?

It was time to get strategic. I waited long enough for the line to disappear. With the other stalls full, I rushed out of my stall, did a 4 second hand wash and grabbed a paper towel on the way out. As I come out of the bathroom door, thinking my break was clean I am faced with 3 people headed straight at me. Panicked I tuck my container under my arm, turn the other way and lunge at a garbage can by the elevator hurtling the container as fast as possible out of sight.

To hell with it. I'll go get a burger.