In the short year that the Tribune has been in publication it has, as is well known, risen to become a beacon of informed debate and social comment. In this vein our beloved editors have thrown down the gauntlet to write on the subject of drinking. How does one respond? As a budding writer who has only really recently discovered the joy of the craft through this publication, I feel the weight of expectation to analyse such a multi-faceted issue in a way that both captivates and challenges the reader. In doing so, I hope to catalyse a higher level of thinking on such an important issue within the community.

Now, I have a well stocked chest of experience and observation from which to draw, and many an important point to make. Huge problems confront us today surrounding drinking; health issues, violence and noise abatement in the Tennyson Street area, just to name a few. With my responsibility to inform and challenge you, the reader, I feel it my duty therefore to write about……getting pissed and pooing your pants.

Everybody knows the festive season is, well, festive. So it was that the darling wife (new girlfriend at the time) and I found ourselves waiting for the train on New Years Eve to go and catch up with some friends and have a big old night. Remembering back to my point about the festive season being festive, it should come as little surprise that NYE wasn’t the only night we were putting a few drinks away, and as we waited for the train I was nursing the after effects of the previous night and the few nights before that. Now I wasn’t exactly hung-over per se, but something was definitely amiss. This I discovered as I wandered slightly away from the lovely one to quickly and quietly pass wind. Adding a bit more grunt than usual to expedite things, seconds later one had sharted oneself. Oh crap!

Madly scrambling for an excuse about how far we had to travel and how I’d forgotten to turn off the DVD player at the power point I managed to convince the lovely one that we should head back to my place briefly and then catch a cab rather than a train. Nearly the perfect crime (except I’ve obviously let the cat out of the bag now). However, on the night, after a couple of hours, I’m feeling pretty resplendent in a new pair of pants, and thoroughly enjoying the banter with the lads around at a mates place.

Inexplicably, at a certain point in the evening, one of those moments occur where all the girls offered to go inside and prepare the meal while the blokes all found themselves outside looking after the chairs and working hard on eating the nibbles. Given that inhibitions dissolve in grog, and that it’s the noble duty of all blokes to keep the banter rolling, I took a chance and let fly with the story of my recent, well, letting fly. Thankfully, all the lads had a similar story to share and a good laugh was had by all. Not only that, but it opened the door for one of the funnier bowel, grog, bog combinations I’ve ever heard. Having shared his own particular story of woe, one of my mates went on to describe the dangers of having a mental mate.

At the time he was living in London, and one of his flatmates used to knock around with a mental case of a bloke called Stewie. Now Stewie quite liked a drink, and didn’t really have much of a functioning moral code or sense of decorum. Nine times out of ten, this was the source of hilarity as our hero would get all pissed up and do dumb shit, to the great amusement of his mates, and sometimes others as well. Everyone has a mate like this somewhere, but every now and then it all goes pear shaped. That’s what happened for this bloke on the night in question.

This poor lad was heading off one weekend, to stay with his folks in their stately home in the countryside, to which Stewie had decided to keep him company, and couldn’t be talked out of it. So, as the weekend lands they head off into the country and a few hours later arrive at the house. Introductions out of the way and Stewie is on best behaviour, charming the Mum and sharing a laugh and a beer with the bloke’s old man over dinner. However, the night soon rolls around to the appropriate juncture and the lads head off into town to warm the local boozer for a few hours. So while the Mum and Dad are left at home, commenting on what a nice friend their son has found and turning in for the night, Stewie is well into the lengthy process of getting himself shitters.

Hours later the boys lob home. Mum and Dad are well and truly asleep, and old mate shows Stewie to one of the many rooms to tuck in for the night. All seems to have gone well, and our hero is quietly pleased that Stewie has made a good impression with the folks, and not embarrassed himself or anyone else in his home town.

Over in Stewie’s room however, things aren’t going so well. Having tucked into bed he now finds himself in desperate need of a shit. So he staggers out of bed and marches off to find the crapper. This is where things start to go horribly amiss. The house is enormous, and try as he might he can’t seem to find the room that the crapper is in. In desperation he picks a room at random, sneaks in and feels his way along the wall to the corner. Having stabilised himself against the wall Stewie lowers the tweeds and drops to his haunches.

‘CLICK’

All of a sudden the room is bathed in brilliant light and his mate’s Mum and Dad are looking at him incredulously from their bed. It’s difficult without having been in the room (thank God) to say for sure who got the biggest shock. But I can say that Stewie didn’t quite shit himself there and then. Without word, and at a speed hitherto unseen in a drunken man, the strides were up and he was off.

Unfortunately however, the story doesn’t quite end there . Having seen the pointlessness of searching the house for a crapper, Stewie heads out into the yard to relieve behind a tree, as he should have in the first place.

The next morning, through what was surely a fairly hazy head and perhaps foggy recollection of last night’s adventures, Stewie is awoken to a scratching at his bedroom door. Curiosity overcoming what must be a fairly large sense of mounting dread he wanders over and opens the door.

There on hands and knees is the Mother of the house, on all fours, scrubbing, out of the quite lengthy shag pile carpet, the shit that Stewie has stepped in and walked through the entire house.

Well, at least he didn’t poo in his pants I guess.

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