Today my eldest brother informed me that the sub-committee responsible for the assignment of nicknames voted earlier to entitle me “Poop”. Why? Because of some sensitive information that I confided in him, believing him to be trustworthy. After knowing him for the eighteen years of my life I should have known better.
I have always had an abnormal aversion to shit. I believe it started when I was about five years old. My mother was still bathing my sister and I together, more for companionship I believe than convenience. At an early age I was already developing a mild case of OCD and the stereotypical “oldest-child syndrome”. My sister, Jade, however, was already beginning to develop her sadistic pleasure for inflicting psychological and/or physical pain on others. One evening, I believe purely by accident, she took a dump while bathing with me. She, probably embarrassed, neglected to inform me that a large dookie was sliding around under the water. I’m not positive how long it had been drifting around down there but eventually it hit my foot. I assumed it was one of the many hundreds of toys we brought into the bath together, so I ignored it. When our bath was finally done and my mother drained the water she and I were both horrified to find a piece of shit lying along with the barbies and rubber duckies, looking like a sad black sheep trying to blend in with the rest. I of course knew that it wasn’t I who had let this one slip. Even at an early age it took me a lot of concentration to produce crap. They don’t, even to this day, aimlessly slip out. I’ve never been the type of person who would be able to poop on a sleeping friend as an innocent prank because it would take way too much time and concentration. In a way I’ve always envied those types. Anyway, it was obvious that Jade was the perp. When horrified, I do become very emotional and dramatic and I guess the show that I put on after this amused her. After that, almost every bath time involved me discovering a piece of shit floating around in the water. I tried to reason, beg and plead with her hoping she’d take pity on me. “Jade, do you PROMISE not to poop in the bath tonight?”, her response was always,”Yah, I don’t have to go, I won’t do it.” Without fail she’d muster some excrement out of that overworked intestine of hers and squeeze out another. Reasoning with her proved to be useless so I began to plead with my mother begging her not to make me take another bath with my younger sister. She tried to convince me that she had already talked with Jade who had promised to stop pooping, and even so, poop that had been floating around in soapy water was not going to necessarily hurt me. I think after a couple of months of crying myself to sleep the group baths finally ended; however, since then I have never enjoyed a bath and only take showers. I even avoid most hot tubs.
I think those early traumatic events of my childhood are what have made my ability to shit with ease so difficult. I’m not constipated but just as you have to be in the right mood to fuck, I have to be in the right mood and environment to shit. Three years ago I flew twelve whole hours to Spain after eating a big meal without shitting because I was so put off by the airplane restrooms which resemble chrome port-a-potties. I knew I needed to shit, probably the biggest shit of my life. My brain told me, my stomach told me, my ass told me but as soon as I stepped into that tiny, odd smelling, sterile box nothing could happen. On the more positive note, I have a very regular poop-schedule. Without fail, if I stick to the same diet, I feel the need to take a shit at the same general time every day. I think people who don’t have this internal poop-clock are the types that buy yogurt like Activa. In high school “my time” was always during my lunch break and, conveniently, when most students were in class. I would walk about a quarter of a mile all the way to the school gymnasium locker rooms because the toilets there were rarely used and I didn’t have to worry about anyone walking in. I’m not loud, it’s just that if I sense another person is in the bathroom with me I get nervous and can’t shit anymore. I can hardly piss in a public bathroom when I’m aware there’s a long line behind me waiting for the same toilet. Too much pressure. So I comfortably made throughout my four years of high school. Now I’m in college and this whole one bathroom to a floor deal has taken a tole on my ass. People here shit all day, many times more than once. Also, my poop-alarm always seems to go off around the same time our cleaning lady, Ofeilia, likes to clean the bathrooms. I always feel like I’m defacing her work. I’d be pissed if I spent a half hour cleaning toilets and someone came in immediately after I was done and took a shit. I’m growing as an independent person though, and sharing my bathroom space and pooping times has gotten easier each week. Now I’m almost nonchalant about it. One of my closest friends, Teddy, once said to me,”Cara, there’s nothing wrong with taking a shit. The president does it, I do it, even the fucking Queen of England does it.” That is now my shitting mantra.
So since I’ve had poop issues my whole life why has the sub-committee of the Association of Nicknames chosen now to dub me “Poop” when they could have done it thirteen years ago? What has changed now that makes this even relevant?… I’ve developed a new irrational fear, involving guess what!… shit. If I happen to be wearing white pants or light colored pants when I shit, right after I’ve crapped, fixed myself, washed my hands and walked out of that bathroom this small suspicion starts growing inside of me: Is there a shit stain on the ass of my pants? All of a sudden everyone I walk by is staring at me. Are they smiling because they like me or because they know about the new brown color scheme I’m trying to get away with on my behind? I’ll walk to classes in a state of paranoia, checking myself out in the buildings’ windows trying to get a glimpse of my ass. I can understand why someone would stare at a girl who switches to walking sideways every time she passes a window. I know I don’t have shit on the back of my pants. I’m a clean pooper and there’s no physical way that the poop could transfer itself onto the back of my clothing. I know this and I also recognize that it is a very irrational fear; however, the fear just won’t go away and I guess makes me eligible for the nickname “Poop”. Meh, I’ve been called worse.
I was the personification of ugly, with my double chin, glasses, and acne infected face. The rolls on my side, protruding belly, and thighs that never separated no matter how far I spread my legs, slowly ate away at my confidence until I was left with no perceivable positive qualities. Those who smiled at me were silently laughing or sighing with pity. At fourteen years old I sold my soul to materialism, vanity, and anorexia. These were the only gods with enough benevolence and power to transform my obesely deformed body. They were not gentle gods. I learned how to starve, how to ignore that instinctual pain one feels when your stomach is empty and pleading for food. I learned how to grimace through the pain in my arms and legs, aching from the lack of nutrition and witnessed my hair slowly losing its shine. I became a shell of a person but all that mattered to me was that that shell was beautiful. Seeing my own bones was like seeing a glimmer of a happier future in which I was valued and wanted. I needed to be wanted, not rejected, and I slowly began to shed the fatty obstacle that had kept this from me my entire life. I slept all day, lacking the calories to be awake for more than twelve hours. As I became physically lighter, I became emotionally heavier. I was overcome by obsession and depression, believing that a smaller me would lead to larger opportunities for happiness. I was willing to shrink until I disappeared, as long as that brought me closer to my nirvana. 
