Additionally, the relieving sensation of letting out a bowel movement (into a toilet) that you’ve been strenuously holding in your abdomen for over an hour is comparable on the pleasure meter to, say — ejaculating for the first time after a nutless November or losing a shitty family member that required round-the-clock care and attention.

This week, I started caffeinating (drinking a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with a turbo shot) in the morning before my hour-and-a-half train ride just so I can feel something during the trip. I’m not talking about energy or any of the other desirable, intended effects of consuming caffeine — that ship has sailed for me. I’ve learned that, while it may be illogical and severely uncomfortable, fighting the urge to defecate my trousers on a crowded train makes me feel alive, which is slightly better than succumbing to the soul-sucking sensation (or lack thereof) of a Lord of the Rings-length commute to work. On top of that, it gives me an adrenaline rush — ostensibly a fight-or-flight response — that helps me start off the work day with a boost of energy, which I can no longer achieve from stimulants.

My go-to shit spot and safe haven is the auxiliary bathroom at a cafe down the street from the Barstool office — one that’s tucked away in the far back corner of the second floor dining area, behind a mysterious door with no traditional bathroom indicators like an emblem of a skirted female or dickless male or mutant half-triangle.

As a result, no one ever enters it (including the cafe’s custodial staff), except for the “second floor regulars,” which include a gang of Hispanic construction workers who play cards on the second floor every day, homeless people, homeless-looking people, and me. On a day-to-day basis, its cleanliness ranges from Artie Lange to Hunter S. Thompson, which, as a West Virginia native and former outhouse user, isn’t a deterrent for me.

Anyway, this morning, my urge to discharge fecal matter was less of an urge and more of an impending nuclear holocaust. So you can imagine the satisfaction I felt when I finally crash landed on the toilet seat. Pure bliss.

No less than a minute into my rectal symphony, I hear the knob of the door turn, thus signifying that another person was trying to use the bathroom. Typically, failure to open the door to a private bathroom sends a signal to one’s brain that says, “this is locked,” followed by the instantaneous realization that another person is using that bathroom. However, typical human behavior is something that you can never expect from the simian heathens and wildebeests that populate New York City.

This particular godless barbarian decided to attempt to open the door a second time, followed by a third time, followed by an aggressive, prolonged knock that disrupted my basketbowel game and triggered the pet peeve centers of my cerebral cortex (if that makes neurological sense).

I was not going to fold and reduce myself to giving this mongrel an unnecessary verbal cue that the bathroom was occupied. If the door is fucking locked, then there’s a grand total of two options on the table: 1) someone is in there and you have to wait, or 2) no one is in there and therefore, knocking on the door isn’t going to do shit. I refuse to awkwardly mutter “yeah” or “occupied” or whatever the customary response is supposed to be.

After the unanswered knock, I immediately heard a male voice loudly pout out incoherent gibberish, as well as noises that strangely resembled pit bull barks or some type of other canine sounds. I instinctively clenched my anus. I was dealing with a certifiably crazy man. And as a passive, non-confrontational guy (pussy), I was scared. The second floor of this cafe, especially in the morning, is a lawless pit that’s more conducive for murdering a human than eating a bagel. The rest of my shit session is a blur to me, but I remember sweating profusely and scanning my surroundings for potential makeshift weapons. This was all amidst hearing periodic sounds of hostile knob turns and door knocks.

When I finally worked up the guts to exit the bathroom and face my predator, I was shocked and simultaneously alleviated to see that my “predator” wasn’t a predator at all. As soon as I swung the door open, I was greeted by an elderly blind man and his fucking guide dog. Ha! Crisis averted. I then proceeded to breathe a gigantic sigh of relief and beat the shit out of him. I wasn’t about to let someone’s disability stop them from having the fair chance to finish a fight that they coerced.

*shameless segue to old Craigslist content*

Which reminds me of another time I tried to empower someone who’s blind to show their true physical abilities.

Also, I was kidding about the end of my story. The person was just a cracked out homeless guy who also desperately had to take a shit.