My Happy Ending (Jill's story inspired by Jennifer's photo)

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 Jennifer gave me this photo as my prompt on August 27, 2021. The food looks so good! But I was also told a funny story about a bathroom emergency about the same time I was given the photo, so I thought it might be funny to blend the two things!

My Happy Ending

It started innocently enough—just a couple of bubbles rolling around in my belly. I had just tried out a new Mexican restaurant a few miles from my house and suddenly things just felt, well, wrong. 

The bubbling quickly turned to mixing and churning, followed by sharp stabbing pains. Knowing that I was going to be home in a matter of minutes, I was trying to take the churns and bubbles and stabs in stride. 

It was almost laughable on some level, how quickly my stomach had rejected my meal—pretty much as soon as I had pulled out of the restaurant’s parking lot. I had quickly decided that going home was the better option to turning the car around and heading back into the restaurant. Home was only about a five-minute drive away, and I would rather have the comfort, and privacy, of my own bathroom as I assumed this wouldn’t be a quick, or pleasant, visit. About three or four minutes into the drive, with escalating stomach pain and pressure in other areas, I wished I had just gone back to the restaurant. Because with about a minute left of my drive, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was going to make it. At least you’re headed home, I told myself, trying to find the silver lining in this literally shitty situation.

But turning onto the main road that my side street turns off of, I hit a traffic jam and felt myself start to sweat. I wasn’t sure if this new, added symptom was from the original issue, the fear that I wouldn’t make it the rest of the way, or a combination of both.

As I sat there, less than a minute’s drive away, I debated if I should just ditch my car on the road. But since there was no shoulder, ditching my car would literally mean just putting the car in park and blocking a full lane of the road. And then there would be all the motion of walking briskly, running even, and I wasn’t sure my sphincter was strong enough to handle all that jiggling. So, I stayed in the car. And I silently bartered with a god I hadn’t chatted with in a while about all the good deeds I would do if I could just make it to the bathroom in time. Considering the fact that I was at a full standstill at that moment, I wasn’t sure how that could be possible. I liked to try to stay optimistic, but my thinking started to change from making it home in time to wondering how hard it was to clean poop off a car seat.

But just as I was about to give up all hope, traffic started moving at the regular pace. I breathed a sigh of relief, squeezed as tightly as I could, and held out hope that this story might actually end happily.

By some miracle of science that I’m not sure I fully understand, I did make it to my driveway, through the front door, and into the bathroom in time!

I’ll spare the rest of the details but will say that I was relieved on multiple levels and have an appointment to pull weeds at a local church next Saturday.


—Jill Cullen (written 9.1.21)


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