I was driving down from my villa this morning in search of breakfast at the nearest beach village when I realised I'd have to turn back for another poo.
This, in itself, won't come as momentous news to anybody who experiences morning bowel movements. Which, all being well, is most people, but I'd already had three between getting up, showering and leaving the property.
For the record, I have diverticular disease. This delightful piece of oversharing is brought to you by the formation of small bulges in the wall of the colon, which has nothing to do with punctuation and everything to do with the passage of food and its by-products through the body. It's also hereditary, which explains why both my brother and my mother have it too; although not the fact that I was diagnosed years before either of them, despite being the youngest of us. Here comes the science bit: Who knew I'd be younger than my mother?
What it means, in real life, is that I have to be careful when and what I eat. Certain foods (bread, pizza, beer - basically all the good ones) eventually trigger a response in me that ranges from discomfort through to pain, and an increasing urge to jettison whatever my body wishes to offload, RIGHT NOW, no hanging around, thank you very much.
There's also an inevitable side-effect involving occasional flatulence that can be measured on the Beaufort Scale, which is another reason why the brilliantly funny, incredibly talented and irredeemably farty blogger and all-round good (if sulphurous) egg girlinoldschooljail and I should never be allowed in the same building, as it would create an unacceptable fire risk if anyone were unwise enough to strike a match.
My decision to turn the hire car around and drive it (as is traditional with rental vehicles) as if I'd stolen it, back to the villa was largely predicated on my extensive knowledge of the toilet facilities available on Greek islands. Don't get me wrong; I love Greece. The food. The people. The beauty of the coast and the countryside. The plethora of half-built and abandoned buildings everywhere you look, like a precursor of the UK after Brexit. But luxuries such as a toilet seat or a lock on the door, let alone a supply of 2-ply paper and adequate handwashing facilities, suggest something of a localised Spartan approach to dropping the kids off at the pool.
So as I was polishing my rusty sheriff's badge for the umpteenth time this morning, a couple of thoughts occurred to me. As you might imagine, some days I have more sitting and thinking time available to me than ideally I'd like.
A confidante of mine was telling me recently how much she enjoyed pegging her boyfriend, and extolling the virtues of prostate massage. Now, while I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the latter, I've got to be honest and say that there's nothing that remotely turns me on about the former, even if the strap-on is being sported by somebody as pretty and enthusiastic as she (this is entirely theoretical anyway, we're just friends, she's reaming some other arsehole).
But the fact is, such is the state of my poor, ravaged, chocolate starfish, that I fear anything inserted into it, be it a polished fingernail or a dildo on a belt, would provoke a rusty water poonami of such ferocity that Japan would be forced to raise an appeal for funds to help the stricken folk of Europe. And there isn't a bin large enough in all the Greek islands to contain the cast-off loo roll that would be necessary for the beach clean-up.
The other thought was about a girl I dated, and lost, a while back. She was, without doubt, the great love of my life. My sun rose and set with her. There was literally nothing in this life she needed to get through alone. The sex was beyond outstanding. She was age-appropriate, brighter than a nebula cluster, and the funniest person I've ever met.
Neither of us is a fan of marriage, but I'd have married her in a heartbeat, even though marriage is, according to a friend of mine, one big party followed by years of indenture - a bit like picking a pair of slippers for the rest of your life. And yet the more I tried, the harder I worked to please her, the more things went irretrievably wrong, until we reached a place so toxic that there was nothing left but recrimination and heartburn, like after a cheap sausage at a school barbecue.
The fact is, that like all the things I love most in this world, including pizza, beer and bread, the more I sated my cravings, the more poisonous the subsequent situation became. She called it off, and it broke my heart into a billion, unfixable, pieces. But ultimately, no matter how much you might adore something, sometimes it's better to accept the expulsion and have that shit behind you. Even if, like this morning, it takes several attempts, and leaves behind a sting so bad you wonder if you'll ever sit down again.
This, in itself, won't come as momentous news to anybody who experiences morning bowel movements. Which, all being well, is most people, but I'd already had three between getting up, showering and leaving the property.
For the record, I have diverticular disease. This delightful piece of oversharing is brought to you by the formation of small bulges in the wall of the colon, which has nothing to do with punctuation and everything to do with the passage of food and its by-products through the body. It's also hereditary, which explains why both my brother and my mother have it too; although not the fact that I was diagnosed years before either of them, despite being the youngest of us. Here comes the science bit: Who knew I'd be younger than my mother?
What it means, in real life, is that I have to be careful when and what I eat. Certain foods (bread, pizza, beer - basically all the good ones) eventually trigger a response in me that ranges from discomfort through to pain, and an increasing urge to jettison whatever my body wishes to offload, RIGHT NOW, no hanging around, thank you very much.
There's also an inevitable side-effect involving occasional flatulence that can be measured on the Beaufort Scale, which is another reason why the brilliantly funny, incredibly talented and irredeemably farty blogger and all-round good (if sulphurous) egg girlinoldschooljail and I should never be allowed in the same building, as it would create an unacceptable fire risk if anyone were unwise enough to strike a match.
My decision to turn the hire car around and drive it (as is traditional with rental vehicles) as if I'd stolen it, back to the villa was largely predicated on my extensive knowledge of the toilet facilities available on Greek islands. Don't get me wrong; I love Greece. The food. The people. The beauty of the coast and the countryside. The plethora of half-built and abandoned buildings everywhere you look, like a precursor of the UK after Brexit. But luxuries such as a toilet seat or a lock on the door, let alone a supply of 2-ply paper and adequate handwashing facilities, suggest something of a localised Spartan approach to dropping the kids off at the pool.
So as I was polishing my rusty sheriff's badge for the umpteenth time this morning, a couple of thoughts occurred to me. As you might imagine, some days I have more sitting and thinking time available to me than ideally I'd like.
A confidante of mine was telling me recently how much she enjoyed pegging her boyfriend, and extolling the virtues of prostate massage. Now, while I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the latter, I've got to be honest and say that there's nothing that remotely turns me on about the former, even if the strap-on is being sported by somebody as pretty and enthusiastic as she (this is entirely theoretical anyway, we're just friends, she's reaming some other arsehole).
But the fact is, such is the state of my poor, ravaged, chocolate starfish, that I fear anything inserted into it, be it a polished fingernail or a dildo on a belt, would provoke a rusty water poonami of such ferocity that Japan would be forced to raise an appeal for funds to help the stricken folk of Europe. And there isn't a bin large enough in all the Greek islands to contain the cast-off loo roll that would be necessary for the beach clean-up.
The other thought was about a girl I dated, and lost, a while back. She was, without doubt, the great love of my life. My sun rose and set with her. There was literally nothing in this life she needed to get through alone. The sex was beyond outstanding. She was age-appropriate, brighter than a nebula cluster, and the funniest person I've ever met.
Neither of us is a fan of marriage, but I'd have married her in a heartbeat, even though marriage is, according to a friend of mine, one big party followed by years of indenture - a bit like picking a pair of slippers for the rest of your life. And yet the more I tried, the harder I worked to please her, the more things went irretrievably wrong, until we reached a place so toxic that there was nothing left but recrimination and heartburn, like after a cheap sausage at a school barbecue.
The fact is, that like all the things I love most in this world, including pizza, beer and bread, the more I sated my cravings, the more poisonous the subsequent situation became. She called it off, and it broke my heart into a billion, unfixable, pieces. But ultimately, no matter how much you might adore something, sometimes it's better to accept the expulsion and have that shit behind you. Even if, like this morning, it takes several attempts, and leaves behind a sting so bad you wonder if you'll ever sit down again.
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