That be gert flush.
September 5, 2017 12:23 PM   Subscribe

The Bristol Post tells the story of a first date that ended, erm, badly: She climbed in head first after her own turd, reached deeper into the window, bagged it up, and passed it out, over the top and back into the toilet from whence it came. She called out to me to help her climb out from the window, I grabbed her waist and I pulled. But she was stuck. Stuck fast. She was stuck fast, upside down in the gap.

One can only hope that Banksy immortalises this in the same manner he did for another amorous window escapade.
posted by ambrosen (72 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
Ambrosen: I am sitting here applauding the post title, which must be one of the best of the year.

(Also, this would have made for an interesting AskMeFi during the attempted poo retrieval)
posted by Wordshore at 12:28 PM on September 5, 2017 [8 favorites]


ā€œAbout an hour in to Louis Theroux and chill, my date got up to use the toilet. She returned with a panicked look in her eye, and told me she had something to tell me.

"It wouldn't flush. Fortunately, I've read a lot of David Sedaris, and knew exactly how to handle the situation."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:29 PM on September 5, 2017 [7 favorites]


INCIDENT PIT
posted by Artw at 12:29 PM on September 5, 2017 [13 favorites]


That poo was obviously a real deuce and a half.
posted by e1c at 12:33 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Have you ever seen someone live your worst nightmare
posted by Countess Elena at 12:34 PM on September 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


What's happening to the moral fabric of our youth? Back in my day, nobody pooed on the first date
posted by The Gooch at 12:35 PM on September 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


I was so pleased when the title came to me, Wordshore. Although of course, it was neither lush, nor a flush.
posted by ambrosen at 12:36 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wow. Because of all the corroboration, I'm 100% sure this is true, but this is so much like an urban legend that was discussed on several episodes of Important If True. Bristol, as I know from the podcast, is a very poo-centric town that does a lot of research on poo and is home of the world-accepted Bristol Stool Scale!
posted by ignignokt at 12:39 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


I always had the bad-first-date topper to end all toppers; it ended with me telling her, "I'll be here in the morning with the bail money."

This...well, this takes the fucking cake.

or, takes the poo, if you will
posted by notsnot at 12:41 PM on September 5, 2017 [13 favorites]


If all goes well for young Liam and his (understandably) un-named date, with wedding bells and a happily-ever-after life, some day, someone will ask "so, how did you two meet?"

Something tells me they'll lie their heads off, and just say they met on the bus or something.
posted by easily confused at 12:44 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Ilana the Doo-Doo Ninja would have had her covered. Just sayin'.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:45 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


This is the first genuine justification I've ever seen for the existence of the poop emoji, which until now I have always responded to with "kill it with fire" šŸ”„ Also brings new meaning to the term "defenestration".
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:51 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


After a year of occasional messages from the "Photoshopped!" brigade of tedious Internet strangers and oddballs, telling me that the cheese thing could not have happened because the building arrangement sounded too weird and contorted, I'm glad to see that a crucial element of this story is:

"Unfortunately, owing to a design quirk of my house, the toilet window does not in fact open to the garden, but instead into a narrow gap of about a foot and a half, separated from the outside world by another (non-opening) double glazed window. "

...which, yeah, crappy (no pun intended) tiny weird illogical buildings in England that are not designed with any privacy in mind, and [redacted] you, sceptics who have never endured living in one.
posted by Wordshore at 12:52 PM on September 5, 2017 [6 favorites]


I'm mostly so nervous on first dates that I'm completely constipated.
posted by JanetLand at 1:02 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


Wait... what?
posted by Naberius at 1:04 PM on September 5, 2017


What makes this story all too real, is that I realize I own the exact same Ikea bath mat as in the photo.
posted by blueberry at 1:04 PM on September 5, 2017 [6 favorites]


I originally saw this whole thing via the funding page. Which is going swimmingly, BTW.
posted by Samizdata at 1:05 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've met all kinds of girls, but none capable of producing "unflushable" poos.

...that I know of.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:07 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


This is so much like "The Tale of the Turd" by Hanif Kureishi. Glad it all went well in the end. So to speak.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 1:07 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


This is what you call "Going number three."
posted by 4ster at 2:01 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Honestly, I'm just astounded that people can produce a volume of waste in oneā€¦sittingā€¦that can block a toilet. This is one of those strange facts about my fellow humans around which I cannot wrap my mind.

I'm not a small person, being a 6'3" guy, and it just floors me that a human can do that. Do these people simply never go? How does one pack away, as it were, so much pooā€”I mean, just where does one store that amount? Never, in all my life, have I even approached the threshold of a toilet's capacity to remove waste. It's just so damn bizarre to me.

Clearly, it happens. I guess never having even owned a toilet plunger is just one more in the embarrassingly long list of things that I've always taken as normal, but in actual fact mark me as the strange one. I'm used to that, at least. At least this time it's a personal oddity about which I can give a bit of thanks.

Man, I do feel for them both though. What an awkward predicament to deal with. Hopefully they're the types who will turn this into a hysterically funny story later on. I had a housemate once that could take any personally mortifying incident and turn it into a story that'd have everyone crying with laughter. Was always jealous of that; I just die of shame forever.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 2:26 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


I've met all kinds of girls, but none capable of producing "unflushable" poos.

...that I know of.


With English plumbing it could be any size poo.
posted by srboisvert at 2:32 PM on September 5, 2017 [12 favorites]


My inlaws are in possession of a toilet with a flush so anemic that it's cause for anxiety each time. The kicker is that it's in a bathroom that has no window, so you'd have to smuggle it out via the living room.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:39 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


I'm a 6'2" adult man and I can't cause this problem myself, los pantalones. However my children have been able to do it repeatedly despite being rather small and willowy. I suspect the answer is "not enough fiber". I've been called in to solve some, er, home plumbing problems and I swear they have produced output that cannot physically fit in their abdomen in any configuration. It's like their intestines are a Tardis, or rather Turd-is.
posted by freecellwizard at 2:39 PM on September 5, 2017 [24 favorites]


It's like their intestines are a Tardis, or rather Turd-is

Ha! Point taken. I'm also willing to posit quirks in plumbing as causing issues. I'm fully aware that though it may seem odd to me, it's a big world, and lots of odd things happen in it.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 2:53 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Honestly, I'm just astounded that people can produce a volume of waste in oneā€¦sittingā€¦that can block a toilet.

It's a thing.

My friend's dad, who was a coroner, said that there actually is a name for the underlying condition - megacolon.
posted by Artful Codger at 2:57 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


A lot of odd things happen in us. I am reliably informed of a psychiatric patient who swallowed a raincoat. How this worked out on the front or back end, I do not know, but it fit inside. The GI system is more elastic than it is comfortable to contemplate.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:57 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


However my children have been able to do it repeatedly despite being rather small and willowy.

Seconding this. My five year old daughter can fill a toilet with a bigger and nastier load than even the most road hardened long haul trucker would claim as their own--and of course, forget to flush and leave it to me to discover the next time I've gotta go.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:58 PM on September 5, 2017 [6 favorites]


Seconding freecellwizard - the most horrifying, bleach-requiring "oh god just nuke it from orbit" plumbing incident that haunts my nightmares was created years ago by my rail-thin slip of a kindergartner. I actually accused my partner of the deed for weeks because I was convinced that it was physically impossible for the little one to have held so much poo in their body.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 3:00 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


My friend's dad, who was a coroner, said that there actually is a name for the underlying condition - megacolon

For the morbidly curious, the MĆ¼tter Museum has a specimen.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:05 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


British toilets are notorious for their inability to flush away more than the tiniest turd. It's one of the many things I prefer about the USA - the domestic plumbing there is ROBUST and built to seriously work. Whereas here in the land of rain and tea, it's often of a delicate and miniaturised nature. So you get tiny showers with pathetic power, taps which are still not in all cases mixers, washing machines and dryers that perpetually disappoint (recent FPP somewhere on this), and toilets which cannot dispose of even a single day's load.

Though, in fairness, I've just remembered living with my ex in Detroit a decade or so ago, and possibly the first argument we had was that she used the same plunger for the toilet and the kitchen sink, which I was kinda NOT KEEN ON. I bought another plunger for the kitchen sink ONLY, which she thought was a waste of money. That was a metaphor for how our relationship panned out on reflection; guess I should have taken more notice of bathroom things. {long sigh}
posted by Wordshore at 3:12 PM on September 5, 2017 [7 favorites]


[Caution for large jobbie] Guess this is the time and this is the thread to drop in the clip from the Big Innes episode of Still Game.
posted by Wordshore at 3:24 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


panned out

very droll
posted by biffa at 3:24 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Repaired to watch a documentary on Scientology...no wonder she had to blow some ass.

Also, If I had pants of death my poo might be terrified and only come out in little teeny bits.
posted by riverlife at 3:39 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


It's not bad, but not his best work and I'd probably recommend Going Clear before recommending it.
posted by Artw at 4:00 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


she used the same plunger for the toilet and the kitchen sink

OMG, no, just no. No!
posted by Beholder at 4:02 PM on September 5, 2017 [7 favorites]


Maybe she just eats a lot of fruit and vegetables?

(youtube, 2 mins of talking about science, not gross)
posted by kevin is... at 4:07 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'd probably recommend Going Clear

Wouldn't chance it on Liam's toilet.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:25 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


That's what I get for stealth reading at work. Now I'm crying laughing and I gotta explain "going number three."
posted by Space Kitty at 4:31 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]


Honestly, I'm just astounded that people can produce a volume of waste in oneā€¦sittingā€¦that can block a toilet

I have occasionally done this to American toilets and, just looking at correlations, it seems to be linked to the volume of the specific turd in question, not the amount evacuated in that sitting. At least, I have certainly had poos substantially more voluminous in toto than my toiletkillers, but they have been multi-turd poos. Toiletkillers happen, at least pour moi, when I have an entire largish poo contained in a single turd.

This is going to complicate my 2024 run for office, isn't it?

Also I am teaching an intro research methods class that starts with basic philosophy of science stuff and an anonymous student wrote me a short reaction paper mentioning Karl Pooper.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:33 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


Extras
posted by stevil at 4:54 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


"I have occasionally done this to American toilets and, just looking at correlations, it seems to be linked to the volume of the specific turd in question, not the amount evacuated in that sitting."

I think the trick is to flush before wiping when output exceeds expectations. Not unlike with concrete it's the ratio and consistency of ingredients that can result in superior structural strength and integrity of the final product when combined and mixed with water during flushing.

(edited for inclusion of comment I was responding to)
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:58 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Toiletkillers happen, at least pour moi, when I have an entire largish poo contained in a single turd.

I have, ahem, some experience with this. Toiletkillers are a combination of 1. Toilet, 2. Fecal circumference, and 3. Density.

1. Many cheap toilets simply do not flush with any force or urgency. This causes congestion at the u-bend, clogging the toilet. This is often compounded by poor bowl design preventing a good plunger seal to resolve the issue.

2. Circumference. Ani vary in girth. Toilets do not. This one should be obvious.

3. Density. Insufficient fiber creates firmer feces. There is an unfortunate point at which they are both large AND dense, unable to navigate the U-bend dexterously and thus clogging the bowl.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:05 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


Slightly worried, on thinking, about how many poo anecdotes I've got (an unhealthy amount). Confession time with one of them; I have done something a bit similar, but nowhere near as extreme as poo-hurling or poo-recovery.

This was in 1992 when I was staying with a good friend (nothing more) from Keele University where I did my Masters, at her parents house. Which was some almost stately manor type place. Way above my "redneck book-reading farmer" social station.

Unfortunately, English toilets. Which even in posh places, would not whisk away a poo that I remember as not being that substantive. I - very insecure, and intimidated by the place - was worried (terrified) that either they or the butler (they had one) might find it, and they would bring it up in conversation and castigate my friend for bringing her working class colleague home with her, and I would be humiliated for doing a working class poo.

So I went through my bag, found a pencil case, emptied the contents, and put the poo (thankfully a solid jobbie) inside the pencil case and closed it tightly. I put the pencil case back inside my bedroom.

The next day, after a good weekend, I left. Got to the train station, got on a train. Then remembered urgh to dispose of the pencil case. Opened my bag, to discover I'd left it behind, on the bedroom table.

I never mentioned it. My friend, who I saw a few more times, never did and I was extremely attuned to any side-comments or change in tone or mode. So for years afterwards, still now, I wonder what happened to the pencil case, and I feel bad for whoever opened it, if anyone did. End of poo anecdote.

My friend's dad, who was a coroner, said that there actually is a name for the underlying condition - megacolon

I ... thought that might be a weird medical joke and was wondering if it may appear in some future film franchise but then I did a google search and heck it is extremely real and some of the images (no links) are not going to be easy to forget. OMG!
posted by Wordshore at 5:06 PM on September 5, 2017 [9 favorites]


(Also one of my all-time favorite anecdotes about poo is here on MetaFilter, in a US election thread)
posted by Wordshore at 5:14 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


The best poo anecdote still belongs to BRIAN BLESSED, of course.
posted by Zonker at 5:36 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


So is it just me who was charmed by the use of poo as a count noun and not a mass noun?
posted by jeather at 6:02 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Here's what I've learned. If a giant poo has clogged the loo, a pan of boiling water won't do.
posted by lagomorphius at 6:04 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I should probably leave this here.
uuunnnnghh
PLOP!
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 6:46 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


The shit we do for love. Amiright, folks?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:01 PM on September 5, 2017


I'll just drop this.
posted by lagomorphius at 8:19 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


Ah, this woman is a keeper. Because 99.9% of us would have excused ourselves early from the date without a word and never had contact with random Tinder date again, I know I would.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:31 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]


In fact, I'm pretty sure I would not own up to it even now with my wife of 17 years.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:34 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


megacolon

The rarest, most horrifying Transformer.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 9:14 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


Honestly, I'm just astounded that people can produce a volume of waste in oneā€¦sittingā€¦that can block a toilet.

It *really* depends on the toilet. I've had them block for practically nothing - pee and paper. And other times, I'm like "Woah. Well done, gravity." No toilet shaming, please.
posted by greermahoney at 12:03 AM on September 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also, can someone explain the title that is apparently fantastic to everyone other than me?
posted by greermahoney at 12:05 AM on September 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Re: the title. A few Bristolian expressions.
posted by Wordshore at 12:21 AM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


(and a few more)
posted by Wordshore at 12:24 AM on September 6, 2017


Many cheap toilets simply do not flush with any force or urgency.

Particularly in rental flats in the UK. I suspect that, just as there is an industry in the UK making cheap furniture (like IKEA but with lower build quality) and appliances sold exclusively to landlords, there are lines of toilets designed specifically for rental accommodation, and calibrated precisely to remind the tenants there of their lowly place in the pecking order by requiring them to stand guard over an unflushed bowl for the 2-3 minutes the cistern takes to fill and try flushing it again.
posted by acb at 3:31 AM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


Opened my bag, to discover I'd left it behind, on the bedroom table.

Holy fucking hell. I would change my name and start a new life in a foreign country.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:45 AM on September 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Holy fucking hell. I would change my name and start a new life in a foreign country.

Quickly resolved the "what happened" part. Found her online (distinctive name). Sent off a message and got an almost immediate response. It turned out that their cleaner found it and the butler disposed of it (I presume the pencilcase as well), and they have had worse poo-related incidents. Also her very rich parents still live in that place and the toilets are still rubbish; her folks are "It's good enough for us, so it's good enough for everyone else" to justify their tight-wadness. There was a bucket I didn't spot in the bathroom that people used (no-one told me at the time).

Also good to be reunited with an old friend, even if the circumstances are a bit odd.
posted by Wordshore at 5:20 AM on September 6, 2017 [11 favorites]


Ah damn you five minute edit window. To clarify, the bucket isn't to poo in or to move the poo to. It's to fill with water and chuck down the toilet while it is being flushed, creating an extra hopefully turd-moving force. The number of times, and different (British) bathrooms, I've had to do some variation on this over the years to get rid of a Wordshore Log...

(Childhood memory: the folk singer Mike Harding singing on the TV or radio "If the food we eat is all different colors, why does it come out brown?" The next day at school, during Religious Education, we were "allowed" to ask any questions about God, the universe, creation etc. Yeah, you know what I asked. And got a week of after-school detentions in return.)
posted by Wordshore at 5:32 AM on September 6, 2017 [7 favorites]


The next day at school, during Religious Education, we were "allowed" to ask any questions about God, the universe, creation etc. Yeah, you know what I asked. And got a week of after-school detentions in return.

Well geez, if you don't want kids to ask questions, don't invite them to ask.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:48 AM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


It's one of the many things I prefer about the USA - the domestic plumbing there is ROBUST and built to seriously work.

I work in a building where the toilets are beyond robust -- they are actually scary, the amount of force they flush with. And yet, there was The Day of the Amazing Unflushable Turd in the ladies' room. I went into Stall #1, and immediately backed away, because there was this giant there, lying horizontally across the hole that everything whooshes down. So, in the interest of Good Citizenship, I delicately reached forward and pressed the flush button. WHOOSH. And it was still there. Didn't budge an inch. I shrugged and went into Stall #2. While in there, I heard my coworker Christina come in -- I knew it was her because she was saying goodbye to someone in the hall as she opened the door. I heard her go into Stall #1. I heard her back away. I heard her delicately lean forward and press the flush button. I said, "I already tried that and it didn't work." It didn't work this time either.

The story ends (after several more flushes) with the two of us peering into the toilet at the Amazing Unflushable Turd ("I would have thought it would bend in the middle from the force of the water," said Christina), and wondering if the person it had, er, belonged to was injured in some way, because crapping that thing could not have felt good. I wanted to ask the custodian about it the next day but didn't quite dare.
posted by JanetLand at 6:58 AM on September 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Wordshore, I think you are uncommonly brace! I'd never be able to admit to such an embarrassing situation! Hats off to you!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:02 PM on September 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


This is why wire hangers were invented.

My mother once interrupted thanksgiving dinner with 'who left that giant BM in my bathroom'. Turned out to be my little sister who'd done it.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:06 PM on September 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


While in college and in a dorm filled with mostly freshman, someone left an outstanding specimen in one of the bowls (I think there were four or five stalls). I don't know who fished it out but they moved it to the big shower where it was set up with a placard and a display rope. Word spread and sure enough, there was a line of amazed freshmen.

I know it was one of the display instigators who transferred it out of the shower and flushed the beast. That guy is probably a marketing VP now.
posted by Ber at 12:31 PM on September 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


My mother once interrupted thanksgiving dinner with 'who left that giant BM in my bathroom'.

why is this the funniest sentence I have ever read
posted by Countess Elena at 1:01 PM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


The thing that puzzles me most about this, (and the apocryphal versions of the story I've heard in the past), is why she thought it would be fine for him to find a wrapped turd lying in the middle of his garden, if all had gone according to plan? Leaving a big poo in the toilet might be embarrassing, but surely it's the least embarrassing place to leave it, out of all the options?
posted by penguin pie at 2:21 PM on September 6, 2017


We were used to such things from our mother.
I always hated her euphemism "BM" (bowel movement). It was way grosser sounding than turd or shit.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:10 PM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


Canada's Maclean & Maclean had some thoughts about this topic. True relevance to the OP can be found starting at 2:15, and a helpful tip at 3:51.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:14 PM on September 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


My 83yo father has some issues with constipation due to the various medications he takes and, as a result, has large, hard turds. I live six hours away and wouldn't know of his fecal habits except my sister found a putty knife taped to a stick setting by his toilet. After quizzing my dad on why he needed to do drywall repairs so far above his head, she quickly warned the rest of us siblings if its true purpose.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:16 PM on September 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


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