crisis at 40,000 feet

I normally avoid airplane lavatories because I'm now too big to fit in them properly. While inside the cabine, I might be able to achieve the docking maneuver that plants my ass firmly on the toilet (extra fat helps me achieve a good vacuum seal), but wiping my ass in such a confined space is a frightening logistical problem, usually solved by kicking off my shoes and pants, standing up, and propping one leg up somewhere (the sink, maybe, or the raised area beside the toilet) to allow enough cheek spreadage for me to access and clean ol' Harry Enos. This whole procedure involves a lot of grunting and shuffling, and heaven help me if I'm drippy with diarrhea. The operation also takes time, because I'm basically dressing and undressing inside that cramped space. Skinny people, count your many blessings.

I can usually get through an entire trans-Pacific flight without having to see the inside of an airplane lavatory, but today, a combination of circumstances conspired to prime me for a high-altitude download.

If there's anything in my colon, heat and cold don't mix for me. When I got on board the flight from Narita to Seoul, I was hot and sweaty from sitting inside Narita's Terminal 1. Then the plane's blowers started up, and as we began taxiing toward the runway, I felt the first seismic rumblings that indicated an impending cataclysm. Cold has that effect on me for some reason: if I have to go, cold air accelerates the whole process; it magnifies the urge to purge.

I spent the first half-hour of the flight trying to quell those shit pangs. I did breathing exercises, counted to 200, tried analyzing the poop urge in an effort to make it go away-- nothing worked. When the meal service rolled around, I seized my chance: while everyone else was chowing down, I heaved myself out of my seat and lumbered over to the lavatory, which was mercifully close to row 10, where I was.

I locked myself inside, undid the shorts, sat upon the cramped throne, and let fly with several mighty bursts of brown. After the initial quakes, I rode the two or three aftershocks that followed, then began the complicated wiping procedure, which involved almost all the steps described above.

That was when disaster struck. After wiping my bum thoroughly, I flushed, but not everything was sucked out by the toilet's powerful whoosh. Stubborn clumps remained. So I took a paper cup from a dispenser, filled it with warm water from the sink, leaned over the toilet bowl, and began pouring the water onto the remaining bits of brown in an effort to make the second flush a suck-it-all winner. But I leaned too far over the toilet bowl...

...and the contents of my shirt's breast pocket spilled out.

By "contents," I mean the following:

a pen
boarding passes and stubs for this and the previous flights
my Korean Customs declaration form
my disembarkation cards, and--

my passport.

Thank God the passport fell on the floor. But the pen, the Customs form, one boarding pass, and the disembarkation form all fell into the bowl.

Imagine, if you will, what this looked like: a fully wiped Kevin, with his shorts around his ankles, gasping in horror at the tableau within the toilet.

I decided the boarding pass was a lost cause; after all, I wouldn't need it at Passport Control. I dragged it out of the bowl, rinsed it, then chucked it in the tiny waste paper bin. The pen and landing forms, though, were a different matter. As it turned out, the slips of paper didn't hit any of the remaining clumps of shit, but the pen... oh, the pen took it full-on. Grimacing, I pulled the fallen items out one by one, saving the wretched pen for last. The slips of paper were sniffed to make sure they weren't transmitting shit odor, but the pen needed a complete washing, which I accomplished as carefully as I could in my distraught state.

Then, the evil deed done, I pulled up my pants and rejoined the rest of the plane in shame, unable to look anyone in the eye.

Our cruising altitude was 40,000 feet. The computer screen was relaying all sorts of flight data: altitude, headwind speed, ground speed, outside temps, time to destination, etc. I couldn't help comparing my experience to that of William Shatner in that Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." I think I had it worse than Shatner.

Heh. Shatner.

I pretended to sleep for the rest of the flight.

_