kingstribune.com

The internet is a wonderful thing. Not just when you need to find out how to remove the smell of cat pee from your favourite Italian shoes, or the best way to tell the world how much you hate the incontinent beast your husband insists on keeping as a pet, but also when you have discovered an new psychological disorder and need to find a name for it.

"Parcopresis can be described as: An inability to defecate when other people are perceived or likely to be around (e.g. in the same public toilet, the same house or the same building).”

A little more than you wanted to know about me? Fair enough, it’s a little more than I wanted to know about me too, but it’s a story that needs to be told, and if I can help one other person out there, just one person avoid this terrible illness, well, it will all be worth it.

Anyway, some background on the traumatic event that precipitated my new disorder.

If you read the pages of demented shouting that was our last issue, you would know that Justin and I gave up smoking last month. In addition to all the shouting and breaking things this caused, it also had the unfortunate effect of putting a complete halt to my digestive system. Yep, fill me up with concrete and hand me another battleaxe, I’m on the nicotine wagon again.

So after a week or so of concrete and battleaxes I was getting more than a little uncomfortable and decided to it was time to take action. My solution was to whip up a batch of high-bran apple and date almond-meal muffins (immediately christened the ‘Poo Muffins’ by the males of my household) and wash them down with a couple of litres of prune juice and coffee just before I left the house for work on Monday morning.

My office is in an old converted bank building, so the outside walls are double brick and the interior walls are made of very thin paper. The cost-conscious builder who did the renovations decided that running new water pipes too far from the existing ones would be a Bad Thing, so he slapped the loo in between the kitchen and the boardroom.

As I said, paper thin interior walls

You can see where this is going can’t you?

Yep, at about 11 o’clock, the prune juice and poo muffins started making their presence felt, just as our Managing Director was escorting some Very Serious and Important People from one of our Major Clients into the boardroom.

They all flattened themselves against the wall as I came hurtling (as fast as one can hurtle whilst firmly clutching one’s bottom) down the hallway and shot past them into the bathroom, then, politely pretending that there had been no crazy lady in the hallway, they all settled themselves comfortably in the boardroom.

For the next 15 minutes I was in the loo dealing with the loud and forceful egress of the Poo Muffins and prune juice, while next door in the boardroom they struggled manfully to continue discussing their Very Serious and Important matters.

In my rare moments of silence I could hear them moving sheets of paper around the board room table. When I think about what they must have heard in their moments of silence I have to curl up in a foetal ball under the bed and pile shoes around me like a little fort.

When I was finally able to leave the bathroom I stopped long enough to grab keys off my desk and then fled the building. After two days in bed I finally crawled back to work in shame. No-one made eye contact with me for a week and I still can’t walk past the bathroom door without turning purple with embarrassment.

It’s time to take action people, we need some government grants, we need a twelve step recovery program, we need several Facebook groups (both for and against) and we need a national advertising campaign to raise public awareness about this debilitating condition. We need a name and shame process for corrupt builders who put the public at risk in such a callous manner.

Don’t let people suffer alone, speak up, speak out and speak loud!

(A note from the co-editor. When lovelywife told me this story, whimpering from under the bed, hidden behind shoes, I laughed so hard I put my back out. In no way was this intended to be disrespectful, or was it a sign that I don’t care about her pain. It’s just bloody hilarious.

However I must point out that this appears to be a particularly female affliction – my actions in the same situation would’ve been to loudly announce, in my best John Elliot voice, the spectacular arrival of each new food-baby, with commentary such as “Whoah, mind the splash-back!”, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrggggghhh, that’s the shot.”, and “Crikey, I don’t remember eating THAT!!”…

I would have then proudly strutted past the boardroom door, poked my head in (yes, pun intended) and informed the Very Serious and Important People that they should give the latrine a wide berth for twenty minutes or so, and it’d need another flush. But I guess this is why I can’t hold down a job in the private sector).

< Prev		Next >