Dear the Internets,

This is a true story.

This is my true story.

I lay down my dignity for you, because I love you very much.

Sincerely,

Beth

Once upon a time, I pooped my closet.

I was pregnant.

With twins.

Approximately 100 years pregnant with twins, judging by my size, but really only 7 months or so, which made me roughly larger than a semi-truck and smaller than the Empire State building. Big, in other words, especially since I started the pregnancy “fluffy” according to a nurse who was kind and wonderful and didn’t call me chubby to my face for which I will always love her something fierce.

Fluffy to begin, I was, and then I got, well, fluffier. Growing two babies does a number on the body, and mine popped out in all sorts of delightful places not limited to my belly. No; I’m pretty sure my hind end, my thighs and my breasts were growing sympathetically in proportion to my middle, good girlfriends that they were, not wanting my belly to feel alone in all the fluff.

Now I didn’t spend much time feeling badly about my weight because I’d lost 3 babies to miscarriage years ago, and now my body was making two of them, so HOT DAMN, Fluffy Body; you ROCK, you know?

Still, every time my mama walked into my house, she’d catch sight of my largess and her eyes would pop and her face would pale and she’d say, “Honey, you’re as big as a barn” and “You know you’re going to have those babies early, right? Because YOU CANNOT GET ANY BIGGER, Child; THERE’S NO WHERE ELSE FOR THOSE BABIES TO GO except OUT OF YOU” which I think was her prayer or an exorcism of sorts: IN JESUS’ PRECIOUS NAME, I COMMAND YOU TO GET OUT, Babies!

So I was big, is what I’m saying. Or Enormous if one wants the technical, scientific description. And that meant it was hard to move, particularly if I was sitting or laying down or anything other than already in motion per Newton’s First Law of Motion which I’m sure he discovered whilst watching someone pregnant.

And I was tired all the time because a) growing two babies is hard work, man, and b) lugging the three of us around was tantamount to getting a cruise liner in and out of port; slow, tedious, a real nail-biter in close quarters.

On the day of the incident, I laid myself down in bed and took a nap. A nap! Which, in case you don’t have kids, I’ll tell you is a miracle both in scope and in frequency because naps are precious and rare, friends. If I ever get to nominate anything for sainthood — anything to sit at the right hand of God the Father in Glorious Heaven — it will be naps. People will be like, What about Mother Teresa who selflessly cared for the destitute and dying? And I will be all, MOVE OVER, TERESA because NAPS.

So I was taking a nap in my nightie sans panties because I could no longer figure out how to lasso those things around my ankles much less wrestle them all the way up my legs, but I was awakened by an urge to go potty. I ignored it, of course, because NAP and exhaustion and the impractical nature of moving the ship out of port, and I fell back asleep, only to be awakened again and again.

Le sigh.

The age old decision of Go Potty vs. Stay in Bed compounded by Pregnancy. It’s a doozy, I tell you, but I finally decided to wrestle myself from the bed and make the trek through our master closet to the en suite bathroom and relieve myself.

Only, on the way, I farted.

Except it wasn’t just an air poopy like I thought.

It was a poopy poopy.

Followed by another poopy poopy.

Followed by another poopy poopy.

Poopies in rapid succession making good their escape and rushing to freedom.

And, as I was sans panties, each soft poopy slid to the closet floor with little puh-looping sounds and sat there like brownie batter, soaking into the carpet.

I, of course, was no longer in the proper physical condition to get my carcass down on the floor to clean it up, but I was also full of abject humiliation and paralyzed at the thought of a) telling my husband I’d just pooped our closet, and b) asking him to clean it.

So I did what anyone in my situation would do: I stood in a sea of poopies and cried.

And cried.

And cried.

Which is where Greg found me. In my nightie. Standing in a field of daisies minus the daisies and plus my feces. Sobbing.

He tried to bundle me off to bed so he could scrub the carpet, but I wasn’t then and am not now a woman who appreciates being bundled, so, through my hiccuppy sobs, I asked the man to lower me to the closet floor, bring me a scrub brush and carpet cleaner and let me clean up my own mess in privacy. Complete privacy please, I begged, “You go AWAY, Greg. Go FAR, FAR AWAY and try to FORGET THIS EVER HAPPENED. I know we vowed for better or worse, in sickness and health, but THAT WAS A CROCK, MAN. I meant for better or worse FINANCIALLY, and in sickness and health WITH NURSES TO CLEAN OUR BOTTOMS. I did not agree to THIS. To Poop Fest 2006. So I need you to go AWAY and breathe peppermint and imagine me back when I wasn’t a closet pooper. PLEASE, man; I BEG YOU. GO AWAY.”

And so he did. He brought me supplies. He lowered me to the floor. He went away.

But I should’ve agreed to the bundling, because I spent the next half hour sitting crisscross in the closet trying to reach past my babies to scrub the carpet, and you guys… you guys… every time I shifted, I touched poop. To the left, my knee hit poop. To the right, my thigh nudged poop. Like St. Patrick’s prayer, except instead of Christ behind me, before me, beneath me, above me, to my left and to my right, where I sit and where I lie, it was POOP. I mean, Jesus was there, too, but mostly POOP.

Due to belly size, I didn’t have the leverage to clean. So instead of cleaning, I smeared. And when I freaked out that I was smearing — I am smearing poop in my closet. OH MY WORD. I AM SMEARING POOP IN MY CLOSET. — I smeared some more. OCD poop cleaning, except without any actual ability to clean. Obsessive compulsive poop smearing. I’m pretty sure that’s a diagnosable psychiatric condition.

Well, eventually, I quit. Wisdom is the better part of valor, after all, and although I admittedly like to exhaust valor before I let wisdom through the door, I could admit I’d tried and was defeated and needed Greg to finish.

I went to get him.

I mean, I tried to go get him, but that’s when I discovered my legs were asleep after being trapped under the belly all that time.

I pulled on the dead weight of my legs to get them out from under me, sticking them straight out from my belly — and into the wasteland — to revive them, but no feeling came back. Minutes and minutes of leaving my legs in poop and just no feeling at all because they were still beneath my belly, even sticking out, and the belly was still good at cutting off blood.

So I laid down.

In the closet.

In smeared poop.

And Greg came back a half hour later to find me there, with poop on my hands and poop on my legs, lying in the poop I’d smushed into the carpet.

In conclusion, I once pooped the closet.

And also, being married to me is THE BEST.

So listen, friend. You might be having a down day. You might be going through a rough patch. You might wonder if you’re the only one sitting in a giant, figurative pile of poo. But I am here to tell you, if you are not sitting in a giant, literal pile of poo, you’re doing better than you know. Better than you know, friends, and better than me that day.

Sending love to you,