the worst places to ever need a shit, as I recall

For some context (not needed but I’m giving it to you), between 2019-2023 I quit around 149 jobs, and this did great things for my salary, I think I jumped up about £20k in 2 years, however it wasn’t worth it. My southward cheerio paid the price.

I took a week off between two particular jobs, and flew to LA to visit one of my waaaay-more-successful-than-me friends. I know I sound like a twat, but please don’t worry, I got my comeuppance. The time difference/jetlag/whatever ended up giving me a bowel movement schedule that I genuinely think is one of the top 3 reasons that this job in particular ended up being my last 9-5. It could only be described as THE shit routine from hell. I was needing to go, like clockwork, everyday, at 11am, and 11am only. No matter what I did, how I changed my morning routine, how I changed my eating schedule, how many etsy witches I paid to reignite a regular 7.30am drop off, nothing was making it budge.

I’m sure anyone that has ever worked an office job will understand why 11am is so horror-some, but incase you haven’t, I will explain it to you. There is no way you’re not expected to be in the office by 11am, there is no way anyone else is late enough to have not made it in yet at 11am, there is no way anyone is on lunch, and there is no way anyone has gone home.

What was the toilet set up I hear you ask? Two cubicles for the approximate 45 women in the office, both offering the absolute bare minimum coverage. When stood up in there - at my very average 5ft7 height - both my feet & forehead were exposed to passers by. These cubicle doors felt more like a gesture of good will, rather than a proper adult toilet experience. You can imagine the acoustics in there. Not even one of those pathetic ‘pfft’ farts that instinctively fall out during a wee were safe. Not only this, but the women’s was sandwiched between the men’s and the ‘break out booths’, that were booked out all day, by literally every-(wo)man-and-his-dog.

Don’t even get me started on the flush. That arsehole was more pathetic than 2019 me when I was still on the dating scene, and (a substack or 400 for another time) she was p-a-t-h-e-t-i-c. I recall a particular scene where I begged the most average guy you can imagine - that I’d been on one date with - to please take my card details off of his uber account (that we’d use for this singular date), as I couldn’t afford to keep paying for his subsequent trips to and from other dates he was going on. I purposely worded these messages in a way that I thought he might still ask to take me out again. Bloody hell even typing this is making my face go hot. But sorry back to the flush, yes this flush was more pathetic than that. So one shit = multiple flushes. For everyone to hear. Office crush in the urinal to my right, my boss’, boss taking a meeting on updating the CRM in the booth to my left.

Now you’re fully filled in, this meant for the 6 months I worked there, I either had a stomach ache from not going, or a stomach ache from the sheer fear that a client on a call in a neighbouring booth had not only heard my pretty shit ideas, but also the sound of even my most hesitant, frigid parps.

This is specifically if you’re at someone’s house, not out for dinner. That latter can always be mitigated by the leave-the-cubicle-shaking-your-head, blaming the invisible person that ‘went in before you’.

When you’re at someone’s house, you’re basically being held on arse hostage. I think people that invite you to these things often want you to suffer, like a hosting hunger games. They’re shovelling you with prosecco, broccoli & anything else that creates gas at a rapid rate, and they know that you’re sat at the table with a stomach that’s now working on a symphony that makes the ‘soft jazz’ spotify background music feel like it’s getting quieter by the second.

The moment your arse sends a signal up to your brain that you need to deliver, that’s all you’ll think about for the rest of the evening. Do you ignore etiquette, put the blinkers on and just march to their upstairs toilet? Or do you use the downstairs one that is metres from the pavolva currently being drizzled with some sort of strawberry concoction, and hope to god your partner’s story is interesting & lengthy enough to keep people sat down out of politeness for at least another 10 minutes. Or most diar, do you just ~figuratively & literally~ suck it up, and not enjoy a moment more of the dinner party. All awful options

Niche but horrible. Needing to be on Oxford Street elicits a fight or flight response in me at the best of times, regardless of the circumstance. I’ll be there with my favourite person in the world, my mum, taking her to Liberty’s to look at tat neither of us can afford, popping to John Lewis for a prosecco & a scone, and still be having a shit time just due to knowing I’m on Oxford Street.

Needing a shit there really does take the biscuit. The John Lewis toilets are your best bet, if not you’re in Pret, a £14 dry (somehow) avocado & tomato baguette in hand, begging a employee for a code to access the bathroom. They’re asking for your receipt to prove you’ve bought something, giving war flashbacks to being in Boots, Heathrow, hunting desperately for your boarding pass to prove you haven’t come all the way to Terminal 5 in your flipflops & neck pillow just to buy 2 packets of tampons and a room temp water.

You can’t find the receipt. You’re buying a shit flapjack just to have a shit. You take what feels like the devinci code to the door, hands now shaking now slightly due to the urgency, code doesn’t work. Everyone in the W1D postcode knows what you’re doing. You run back to the counter, begging for them to make it work, they let you in, you sit down to the drop the least enjoyable biscuit in the basket, and catch a glimpse of your surroundings - if there’s one thing you’re sure of, the person that signed off that this was last cleaned at 11.08am 21/01, must mean 11.08am 21/01/1872. You feel like you’re carrying those surroundings with you all day, particularly when cheers-ing that prosecco with your mum.

Everything about being at your in-laws feels embarrassing. I am 31 and have been with my partner for 6 years, yet take me to his mum’s house? I’m shy 18 year old me, going red when spoken to, shuffling behind my fiancé like a pathetic shadow.

Do you know when it becomes more embarrassing? When you have to stay over. There are two things that you want to make clear, but can’t say out loud. I will neither shag or shit here. Lying in my boyfriend’s teenage bed, I scowl at him for turning over and making the bed squeak. Rearranging a pillow & accidentally knocking over a water bottle? Now your parents obviously think we’re manoeuvring from spread eagle to reverse cowgirl, all in your faded Chelsea FC sheets.

In these moments there is only one thing worse, and that is going for a shit. All consuming. The only solution is to shower at the same time, but my body’s suddenly remembering my poo schedule from 2021, it’s an 11am-er or nothing. Do I delay my shower, and say I like to experience a bit of day first? Do I stick to a reasonable shower time, and squeeze until my eyes pop out? Do I say I’m an evening showerer? And spend the whole day saying my stomach is making those noises because I’m hungry? Decision fatigue, and you’ve not even got started on deciding what parts of your personality are ok to let slip out to your in-laws, and what parts needs to be entirely exterminated/fabricated.

I think I’ll leave it at these for now. I have absolutely no idea what inspired this list, and I truly could go on forever, but for now I think I’ve given you enough info. I’d love to know any key locations I’ve left off and should add to my worry list in the comments.

So if you’re sat on the toilet right now, in the comfort & privacy of your own home producing the goods, I hope that makes it to the top of your gratitude list for today.

If you enjoyed I’d love for you to subscribe! I’m hoping the Lousy Digest can become a hub for you to join me in investigating menial things that have literally never kept anyone up at night. I say that but actually a lot of these things, like these poo scenarios, have. but I am starting to realise that’s definitely a me problem, and I might aswell make something out of it.

Quick intro:

And if you’re curious about who I am, I’m Holly hello !

I’m 32, a content creator over on the apps you’ve probably got blocked by opal/brick - and I just kind of alternate between chatting shit, and talking about being audhd on there.

I’m also expecting my first child in about 3 minutes and am absolutely terrified and bamboozled someone’s just let me do that. Here's me earlier today checking out my disposable pants I’ll be fashioning soon. If honest motherhood stuff interests you, I’d love to know in the comments, as I can add some of that too.

If not we can just pretend that isn’t happening and carry on with the he-heing.

I don’t know why I chose an aiya-napa-neon-green pedicure for what will be my first steps into motherhood, but it feels on brand. If you’re Craig, the promoter I snogged in the River Reggae toilets back in 2012 and you see this, know there’s still time to rekindle, but it’s running out.

Toodlepip

Holly xx