forwarded to Arthur Saxon by the aforementioned 'Dad'
Dear Mum and Dad,
Sorry I’ve not written for such a long time – I have absolutely no excuse except to say that Doug and I have been very busy lately. I hope the enclosed recent photos will mollify you somewhat – I know Dad will get a kick out of Doug’s new toy, and the pics from our anniversary trip came out pretty well.
We have some rather sad news – Doug’s aunt Marge passed away last weekend. You’ll no doubt remember Marge from the wedding – her misbehaving poodle was something of a talking point. Anyway it was quite sudden, and unexpected – she had a stroke on Saturday evening and passed away in the hospital at lunchtime on Sunday. We’ll be going to the funeral on Friday.
Our fish tank has a couple of new residents – two silver dollars, which Doug brought home on Saturday. They’ve already made short work of the corkscrew grass we had – we’re now debating whether we should try to introduce so many plants that the dollars can’t keep up with their growth, or not have any plants in there at all. I favour the former option, since I love the plants, but fear the latter might be more practical.
Doug’s contract comes to an end next week. He’s got several jobs lined up beyond it, but nothing long-term, which is really what he’s hoping for. The money’s good in these short-term deals, but he does get tired of constantly shifting from one company to another and having to re-learn new systems all the time.
My own job is going okay – same as usual really. Shift work doesn’t agree with me too well, but I’m gradually getting used to it, and I think I’m impressing June, the volunteer coordinator. Except that she nearly fired me yesterday. Ugh – I can’t help shivering whenever I recall it! The most awful and embarrassing thing happened – I hesitate to tell you about it, but I know that Doug will tell you if I don’t … he thought it was terribly funny.
I was on the night shift – this was Wednesday night – and my colleague Janet was late so for a while I was on my own. I’d been on this call for a while – some guy whose wife had left him – and I was getting pretty desperate to go to the bathroom. I should explain that I had been constipated for over a week and had taken a couple of laxatives to ‘get things moving’. So there I was, feeling increasingly desperate, when I finally managed to talk the guy out of throwing himself off the top of his building. I rushed to the bathroom, but before I’d even got halfway through peeing I heard the phone ring again.
I finished peeing, but there was no time for anything else, and I didn’t even bother to wash my hands – I just pulled my panties up and rushed out to grab the phone. It was a teenaged girl – she was getting bullied at school, poor thing. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was going to be a long call – the girl was completely serious about downing an entire bottle of sleeping pills. I talked to her calmly and soothingly, but inside I was screaming – I was so desperate to poop!
An hour later I just couldn’t hold it any longer, and this girl was showing no signs of changing her mind. She was happy to talk, but once she put the phone down and went to bed, it would be to sleep permanently. I couldn’t afford to let her go. So … I pooped in my panties. I know, I know! It was totally disgusting, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t very well say to the girl, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.” Well I could, but I’d have no guarantee that she would still be there when I got back. It’s against the Samaritan guidelines to take a bathroom break while on a call, even if it’s a long call. I hear other branches have wireless headsets, so you can go to the bathroom and still keep talking if necessary. But out here in rural (or at least semi-rural) Norfolk we don’t have access to such advanced technology!
Ugh, it was awful. I just meant to let out a little bit, but once it started, it kept coming and coming. And it was such a relief to get rid of it! I just lifted my bottom off the seat and let it flow, all the while giving this girl words of sage advice and trying not to sound like I was in the middle of pooping!
My goodness, but there was a lot of it. Once I’d squeezed out a couple of big logs into my panties I figured I might as well let it all out, so I kept pushing and pushing until my bowels were empty. It took about five minutes, because every so often my panties would start slipping down and I would have to rearrange the load so that it was spread more evenly. That was quite a process – and not a very pleasant one. I had to knead and squish the huge lump through my panties until it oozed forward along my gusset and started creeping up the front. I realize that this was a good way to court an infection, but I couldn’t bear to simply empty it out on the floor. Anyway by the time I’d finished my panties were just packed at the back and the front. I couldn’t sit down after that, of course, so I had to alternate between kneeling, squatting and standing up.
The smell wasn’t as bad as you might have expected, but I guess it was getting pretty strong after half an hour, because when Janet finally arrived, the first thing she did was cough and put her hand over her nose. I was absolutely mortified! She just stared at me in shock and disgust for about two minutes, until I wrote a little explanatory note on a post-it and held it out to her. Once she’d read that, she just shrugged, opened a window, and sat down. She might have offered to take over my call! But I don’t suppose that would have gone down too well with my suicidal teen.
In any case, another call came in soon after that, and Janet took it. By this point I realized that the only way I was going to keep my caller alive was to keep her talking until morning, at which point suicide would simply not be a viable option for her, as her parents would investigate if she did not get up and go to school.
So from about half past four in the morning until nearly eight o’clock, I had to kneel there (or squat, or stand) with my panties practically overflowing with poo. I was hoping they had not actually leaked – I was wearing one of my favourite skirts (you might recall it, it’s the short black pleated one with a gauzy inner layer and a slightly more opaque outer layer), and I didn’t want it to get messy.
At five to eight I finally put the phone down, and I hoped I would be able to make it out of the door before June arrived. Alas! She walked in just as I was picking up my purse, and she almost choked on the smell. Of course she demanded to know what had happened, and I was obliged to confess to the awful deed. She was on the point of firing me, I think, but I told her that the life of a caller was more important to me than whether I got to the bathroom in time. When she heard this, and saw how distressed I was, she relented and told me to go home right away and clean up.