Public Poopin'

At a wedding last night there was a constant flow of women in the can. Chatting, grooming, gushing, etc. Not women I knew, so I found myself in that position that presents itself every now and again as an ostomate: having to poop publicly when the stank will (in my mind anyway) obviously be attributed to my stall- by potentially judgmental strangers.

I used to carry around that genius blue M7 concoction. Seven drops and a bag of would-be-stench becomes odorless. I stopped; not so much out of laziness or not caring so much (although it's true I don't care as much as I used to), but when I graduated, my medical supplies were no longer covered by my Dad's insurance, and my income was dismal.

A recent tip passed on from a fellow-ostomate is that just putting one of those fresh breath tabs in your bag will eliminate all odor (which doesn't surprise me at all since they also can burn the roof of my mouth off with their potency). I keep meaning to get some... but what if my stoma dissolves?

Just a month or so ago at a night club I found myself in a similar public washroom situation of dreading the sploosh of poo and it's accompanying whoosh of sulfuric stench into the air (mind you, I don't mind the smell myself). It was then that I had an epiphany. If I unroll the bag to the point where it's just about to spill and then quickly slam my legs together, squeezing so that no air will escape, no smell will escape. Then there are two choices: one is to slip your hand through the airtight barrier, releasing as little air as possible, bring up the end of the bag and do the wiping thing; the second choice is to twist around (without releasing a peep of air) and flush the toilet, taking down all the poop except that nominal amount which clings to the opening, and is really not enough to make a stink about (oh, har har har).

I prefer the latter method, and it worked just fine for me last night. Although, this does require two flushes, in order to get the poopy TP out of site. But I'm not so self-conscious that I care if people outside the stall would actually pay attention to the number of flushes, plus- being an ostomate I feel I'm naturally entitled to an extra quota of flushes per day.

Should some vigilant water-conservationist ever yield enough power in my neck of the woods to enforce some kind of cap on water usage, I'll be sure to fight for special exemption status.