20/20 hindsight

Last Friday I went to the Y to run on the treadmill. I've only recently begun working out again, after an unprecedented hiatus of several months, and for some reason, as I ease my way back into shape, I've found it less daunting to run on a treadmill than to run outside.

I planned to run for half an hour, and everything went fine for the first several minutes, except that it was an unbelievably glorious day, and as I ran--looking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the leaves gently rustling and the deep blue sky, and listening to Journey and Sade and the other terrible music the Y pipes into the fitness room--I began to feel like an idiot for not getting my exercise in the fabulous, invigorating, other-people's-music-free outdoors.

But all that kicking-myself regret soon turned into relief, because somewhere in the seventh minute, it became quite clear that I needed to take a dump. If you've done any serious running, you know that this kind of thing can happen. Distance runners are always leaving treasures in the woods and wiping themselves with a sock, or leaves, or chipmunks, or whatever else happens to be within reach. (My brother once wiped with poison ivy. Oops.) Remember Greta Weitz running the New York City marathon with diarrhea streaming down her legs? That would have been my only option.

The thing is, like Greta Weitz, I can get pretty obsessive when I exercise. I really didn't want to interrupt my workout to take care of business. So I continued running, with my butt cheeks pretty much clenched together. Though my ass muscles undoubtedly got some additional toning, it really wasn't all that pleasant.

Finally, after 25 minutes, I had to concede that I wasn't going to make it. I hopped off the treadmill and trotted to the bathroom, where things quickly got ugly. There was noise and stench and seemingly no end in sight to the proceedings.

The bathroom is small, with only two stalls, so I was mortified when the door swung open and someone sat down in the stall next to me. To make matters worse, all she was doing was some dainty, ladylike tinkling. I so wished I could just be alone with my subhuman disgustingness.

However, I became quite grateful for her companionship when I discovered that the toilet paper roll was empty. Still, it took me several seconds to work up the courage to ask her for some help: I had to overcome the fact that I was being made that much more vulnerable.

"Can you do me a favor?" I said. "Can you pass me some toilet paper?"

"Oh, no," the woman said. "I'm not going to do that for you."

Holy shit! I thought to myself. Why? And then, Now what?

"I'm just kidding," she said. "Just a little bathroom humor."

I managed to chuckle, and she handed me a wad of toilet paper under the divider. It was just barely enough; I really had to strategize.

I waited for the woman to leave before emerging from my own stall, because really there's no way to face a stranger who has endured your foul odors and then assisted, in her own small but essential way, with the cleanup. You just can't do it.

I washed up and then went back to finish my run, which was now a hell of a lot more enjoyable, though I was still traumatized by my bathroom experience. So traumatized, in fact, that I just had to blog about it, days later--as if telling the world the handful of people who read this would release me from some of that shame.

Hey, I do kind of feel better now.