Fun Digestion Stories for Kids (Warning: Poo) (/lack thereof)

I feel like all I do lately is work and shit.

I know there are lots of people who can't, oh, you know, go, in public restrooms -- in bus depots, on planes, etc. I've always felt an arrogant pity towards them. Poor finicky souls. They must be so uncomfortable.

And now I... can't. At work. Not "feel too embarassed to," but "am physically unable to." My body has decided it is not a safe place to share our creative collaborations.

Which means an eight-hour work day, bracketed by Key Poo-Allowable Times. It would be funny if -- well, no, it is funny.

And in other news: Betrayed by Cake

So I almost choked to death at work today. It was interesting.

I was upset because I think someone ate the last Pizza Pop(tm) I was saving in the fridge. I was huddled by the sink, waiting for a free microwave to cook my backup dinner -- a raw potato -- (It wouldn't be raw after I cooked it, obviously, but I thought that would sound more pathetic, you thieving monster) and for nutrition and comfort I crammed a bit of cake into my mouth and swallowed it. Which would have been fine if this were not originally a very dense cake, now three days old.

It stuck. And stayed. I could feel peristalsis doing its convulsive best, but making little throatway. And it hurt. I was still breathing -- I tried several times to make sure, and immediately became faint. (Now I think I was probably hyperventilating because, hey, choking.)

It was kind of fascinating. I had a moment of difficult-to-describe experience, like fear, but both more and less. Things started to grey out and get strange and distant, and I was absolutely confined inside my own body, my own head, as we always are but pretend we're not -- a moment of intimacy with Mortality, who holds us always in his arms, not to give us the Heimlich but to lower us gently into the Styx, our eyes bulging, our throats plugged like bottles with corks of Death Cake.

I managed to mutter out my story to a kind, if bemused, co-worker, who promised to give me the Heimlich if I fainted. I put my arms over my head. She told me to relax.

Eventually, I didn't die. My co-worker gave me some of her Hamburger Helper as a soft-food alternative to Death Cake. Hamburger Helper is nice and squishy.

O Cake. Thou hast betrayed me. And there's still so much of thee left in the fridge. (Grumpy Bastard winces audibly. All right, all right, I'm taking it out. I forgot. Refrigeration makes flour go stale faster.) What the hell am I going to do with all of thee? Make a trifle?

{rf}

Free Bonus Poo Story

So I ran into Grumpy Bastard randomly on the street today. Inland C. and I were passing on our way between errands, and he shouted at us until it was clear we had at some point lost a fair percentage of our hearing, then ran up and announced,

"Princess needs another enema!"

Inland C. said afterwards she thought it must have been some kind of Hipster Jargon, but no, the cat, Windy (ahem), nicknamed Princess, really does need another enema.

Isn't it a great line, though? The clever lad. It's destined to become Cool Kid Talk. Someone's being a pain in the ass (excuse me), really driving you nuts, and you say:

"Aw, does princess need another enema?"

Uranus Hertz!