This story is a drastic deviation from my usual topic, mainly because I have been so sick for the past few days I have been unable to leave my bathroom, let alone go on any dates. Heaven forbid I did, the poor man would never recover from the horrific sights, sounds, and smells he would experience in my presence.
Show of hands – how many of you have heard of Haribo sugar-free gummy bears? If not, google them. If you have, you know what horrid path we are about to travel down. It is a path paved with gastric warfare and liquefied poop. Haribo no longer makes the sugar free gummies previously known as “hell bears” because they gained such a reputation for giving people the shits that they had to discontinue the product (so I’m told) to avoid what I can assume must’ve been an avalanche of potential law suits. Supposedly there are other brands out there that are still sold and it astounds me that they haven’t been banned yet. The ingredient that turns you into a putrid mess of diarrhea is called Lycasin, so when I purchased a bag of gummies on a $100 dare from my friends, I checked the label to be sure they weren’t the same as Haribo with a different brand name on them. The coast was clear! I could eat them without the anal destruction so many other people described!
Thursday, 7:30 pm: I bought four pounds of the gummy bears and promptly ate about half a pound of them right away. I admit that I didn’t feel so awesome right after doing so, but I blamed the mild unease building in my stomach on the fact that I don’t usually eat gummy bears to begin with. Checking the ingredient label once again, I reassured myself that there was no lycasin in them (the ill-fated ass vomit-inducing ingredient found in the Haribo brand) and they would not turn my anus into a poop-fueled rocketship.
Thursday, 10:30 pm: I’m getting ready for bed and feeling fairly confident that nothing is going to go wrong. That uneasy feeling in my stomach probably had nothing to do with the bears. There has been a noticeable uptick in farting activity during the last 30 minutes and they all smell like rotten cabbage, but nothing worth raising the alarm over just yet.
Friday, 2:30 am: I’m wakened by a faint meowing sound and realize my cat and dog are both pawing at the door to leave my bedroom. As I take a deep breath and go to sit up, I am suddenly assaulted with the most horrific stench I have ever smelt in my life. I have obviously been farting in my sleep for hours and the smell has permeated EVERYTHING. The sheets, my comforter, the walls…everything smells like a toxic chemical poop mix. My ceiling fan has been slowly churning the smell around and around for hours, tormenting my poor pets. The poor things are probably suffocating amidst my odors. I open the door to let them out and decide to go to the bathroom, where I start to feel some cramps. Again, I refuse to blame this on the gummy bears. I am a fool in total denial. I head back to bed.
Friday, 3:00 am: I am jolted awake by the sudden strong urge to vomit. I can’t believe how painful it is. I run to the bathroom and quickly realize that not only am I going to vomit, but I have to poop. BAD. I sit on the toilet and suddenly it feels like I am giving birth to a human baby through my butthole. It is the most excruciating poop I have ever taken. It feels like hot lava rocks and nuclear warheads are being shoved out of my unlubricated asshole and I check the bowl to see if I am bleeding. Yes, there is a copious amount of bleeding going on. I collapse on the floor in front of my toilet, shivering and on the verge of sobbing. The nausea hasn’t gone away but I am so weakened by that bowel movement that the best I can do is flop my head over the edge of my shower stall and aim my mouth toward the shower drain. I vomit three times without even getting up and with a shaky arm I reach up to turn on the shower to rinse everything off. When I’m satisfied that nothing else is going to come flying out of either end of me, I crawl back to my bedroom. My animals are sitting on the couch staring at me. They look terrified and both of them refuse to come back in the bedroom. I don’t blame them.
Friday, 5:00 am: I am sitting on the toilet again, crying and wishing this hell would pass. I am not pooping at all, quite the opposite. I WISH I could poop now. The cramps in my stomach feel like the bears are staging a breakdancing contest and I realize that lycasin might not be the culprit, but something else sure is. The cramps are heinous and I can’t even squeeze out a fart. I have come to realize that the only hell worse than uncontrollable diarrhea is when you can’t take a crap and all of that hell bear fury builds up in your stomach and intestines. I shudder to think what it will look and smell like when the bears finally decide to let loose. Crawling out of the bathroom to check the box with the gummy bears, I look at the label and see the main ingredient is Maltitol syrup. WTF is that? A quick google search dashes the last shreds of hope I had that the gummy bears were safe for consumption. Maltitol is basically a laxative on steroids. In other words, it’s another word for lycasin. Dear God, help me.
Friday, 8:00 am: I am trying to pull on my yoga pants and a t-shirt to stumble into work. I don’t even care if I look like shit because that is exactly how I feel. I have been burping up those fucking bears all morning and I can still taste them, so I know they’re just sitting in my stomach in one gelatinous mass of sugar free hell, waiting for their time to make a move. Before getting out of my car and walking into the office, I say a silent prayer in my car that the diarrhea doesn’t strike me while I’m at work today.
Friday, 12:00 pm: Surprisingly, I have made it through most of the morning with minimal pain. I have had some cramps but nothing insane. I am actually starting to feel a little better and when my coworkers ask if I want to get some barbecue, I let my guard down and say sure!
Friday, 1:00 pm: Okay, so the barbecue might have been a bad idea. Like, a REALLY bad idea. My stomach is gurgling so loud at lunch that one of my coworkers tells me my insides sound like Voldemort. I have no idea what that means but judging from the look on his face that’s probably not good.
Friday, 1:30 pm: I’m growing nervous that the bears may have had a delayed reaction with me and that the poop phase is about to begin. Shifting around uncomfortably at my desk, I hear a squeak pop out of me and freeze. Praying that no one heard it, I spring up and dart to the office bathroom. Our bathroom sits right in the middle of the office and the walls are thin. I am very afraid of what’s about to occur.
Friday, 2:00 pm: Any small amount of dignity I still had is gone. The bears have begun their outward march from my anus and as I use up two full rolls of toilet paper I scream on the inside praying there is more in the cabinet. The substance pouring out of my backside looks like Guinness beer (I will never be able to drink that beer again now) and it smells like spoiled baloney with a hint of burnt plastic. And the farts… good heavens to bullwinkle, the farts. They are like fog horns blasting every 10 seconds, punctuated by waterfalls of toxic waste pouring out of my butt. My boss’s office is just outside of the bathroom and I am convinced that I am going to be fired as soon as I step out of the bathroom door. I contemplate leaving an apology note for the night cleaning crew that will have to come into this room.
Friday, 3:00 pm: I return to my office, confident that the diarrhea has subsided for a minute, but the farting is still uncontrollable. Since I would rather kill myself than go back in to terrorize the bathroom any more and embarrass myself any further, I shut my office door and let one rip. It is so loud it echoes off the walls. I hear my next door neighbor laugh. I grab my sweater from the back of my chair, ball it up, and shove it against my butthole so that I can muffle the farts. It works.
Friday, 3:30 pm: my boss knocks on my door. I have lit a scented candle in the hopes of drowning out my odors, but instead my office just smells like balsam trees and shit. I open the door and let him in, silently praying he has a cold that has left him too congested to smell my stench. He doesn’t seem to notice anything smells off and I pray he doesn’t notice the sheen of sweat that has broken out across my face. He’s been in here for 30 seconds now and that means I have held in three consecutive farts. They are building up and I am probably visibly straining to hold them in, but I don’t care because I would rather look weird and strained than let loose with one of these banshee farts in front of my boss. He finally leaves. I slam the door shut and run back to my sweater ball, jam it against my ass, and let loose. By the time all of the gas is released, the sweater ball is hot and the whole room feels about 5 degrees warmer. I google whether or not it is possible to kill yourself with your own gas. Terrifying factoid: it is.
Friday, 4:15 pm: One of my coworkers pops his head into my office and yells, “Boo!” I shart myself from the shock of it and waddle to the bathroom with my knees closed. I don’t even care at this point if I look stupid. I vow to make him suffer for this.
Friday, 4:45 pm: I have been clenching my butt and staring at the clock in disbelief, wondering why it feels like time is moving in reverse. All I can think about is running to my car so I can relax and fart. At this point, my stomach hurts so much from holding it in that I’m not sure I can walk anymore without something slipping out. Deciding that I can’t wait until 5 and face the prospect of potential rush hour traffic, I bolt to my car in a bizzarre duck waddle hoping none of my coworkers leave at this point and witness me going diarrhea in my pants right in the parking lot. I make it to the car and let out such a putrid bomb of gaseous air that I have to roll down the window to breathe.
Friday, 5:00 pm: I make it home and my poor pets are so excited to see me that they unsuspectingly follow me into the bathroom as I sprint to it. My cat makes a howling sound the instant the smell hits his nose. My dog debates for a minute before he finally walks out too.
Friday, 5:30 pm: I’ve finally peeled myself away from the toilet long enough to let my dog out in the backyard. While playing outside I hear my phone ring a few times and it turns out one of my coworkers left his car keys in my car today at lunch, so I offer to bring them back to the office. I get about one mile up interstate 95 before I have to pull over and hang my ass out of the side of the car to unleash a bout of diarrhea more powerful than a fireman’s hose. I actually hear myself mutter, “whoooa there!” as I grip the door handle and hold on for dear life. Hoping I’ve bought myself some time, I finish the drive back to work and drop off the keys and speed back home.
It’s now 8:30 pm and I’m finally staring to feel like I might survive after all. The diarrhea has subsided but the farts are still relentless. I’ve barely eaten anything in over 24 hours and I feel like I’ve lost 10 lbs. As tortuous as the last day has been, I’m already eyeballing what’s left in that fruity little bag of life ruiners, contemplating eating some more to lose a little more weight. Bottom line, I will be back in the game in a few days (as soon as I can eat during a date without fear of another flare up) so today’s lesson is unless you are on a mission to bleach your intestinal track, sugar free is never the answer!
