Uganda Be Kidding Me Read online

  “Well, this will make an interesting story,” I said aloud to myself. I remembered a dinner party at Shmelly Shmazoff’s house not long ago where a bunch of famous people went around the table telling their worst shit and diarrhea stories. By the time it came around to me, my friend Shmarlize Shmeron looked at me and said, “Well, Chelsea, we saved the best for last. Let it rip.”

  “I know you may all find this hard to believe,” I announced to the table, “but I can honestly say I have never shit my pants. I know you probably think that’s something I would do, but sorry to disappoint. I am not a pig from HELL. I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, but I haven’t done it and I can’t say that I ever will.”

  “Oh, come, on!” Shmarlize groaned. “Like any of us believe that.”

  “Listen up, girls! I have not shit my pants. I have peed in my pants several times due to excessive laughter, and I have dated several men who have shit their pants in my presence—once even in the bed while we were sleeping, and I’m willing to tell you that story—but I will not make up a ‘shit in my pants’ story in order to make friends with famous people.”

  As I swam back to the house, I reflected on the irony of that night and looked forward to the next dinner party where I would be able to add more to the conversation. Then the thunderbolt hit me again; my asshole wasn’t done with me. I had to go again and this time it wasn’t going to be nearly as graceful. I ran out of the water and managed enough wiggle room to make it all the way back to the beach club.

  “Hello????” I wailed. “Someone!… Anyone! . . Sargeant!”

  There were four small, tented buildings and I hobbled to each one but everything was closed as it was before 7 a.m. Where the hell did that onesie guy go when I needed him?

  I had to make another executive decision. The dunes were too far behind me now, and the closest objects were three kayaks and two water tires.

  I reached around and felt the back of my bathing suit bottoms, which were rapidly filling up with my own entrails. They had essentially turned into a diaper. Africa was coming out of me, and I could not stop it

  “Oh my god. This is the worst. You are the worst,” I told myself as the culprits slid down my good leg.

  I headed toward the kayak, leapt in just as my bikini bottoms were about to give, and emptied the rest into the kayak. I had never felt so defeated; I had no choice but to give up and let everything come out that was supposed to. “Good-bye, Africa,” I declared to the sea.

  Simultaneously, I spotted the same yacht from a few minutes before, and my anxiety kicked back into full gear. In an effort to deflect attention from what I was actually doing, I picked up the oar that lay next to the kayak, and started rowing—in the sand.

  By this juncture, I had lost at least a gallon of water in sweat and was basically urinating out of my asshole. I won’t deny that as humiliated as I felt, I couldn’t wonder how much weight I had lost. I had to consider what my next move would be and how I would get this mess cleaned up without anyone seeing anything. I also knew that another bomb could drop at any moment. I couldn’t bear to look down. I’ve seen photos of Hiroshima, and I was not interested in revisiting the site.

  There is a reason diapers are held together by tape, I thought to myself.

  I got up out of the kayak and saw that my lower body was a disaster. I threw myself into the sand and rolled around in it like I had just been thrown from a burning building. Minutes later I was camouflaged well enough to make the trek into the water. My leg was throbbing, as this was the most activity it had seen in months. I hopped as quickly as I could to the ocean and then dove headfirst into a half a foot of water.

  My bikini bottoms came off and I rinsed them. Then I scrubbed my whole body with sand, sea, and whatever fish were swimming by. Once I was able to comport myself with some degree of dignity, I made my way out of the water and back over to the kayak to clean up my mess.

  I dragged the kayak over to the dunes about twenty-five yards away, where I had given birth to my first child. Once there, I sat down to take a break. Not only was I in a tremendous spiral of shame, I was also in a tremendous amount of pain, but the fighter in me was not going to give up until justice was served.

  When I caught my breath again, I turned the kayak upside down and emptied whatever I could into the dunes. I shook it repeatedly and slammed it into the grassy sand until I got everything out. After covering my abomination with more sand, which I had to transport from the beach below using my hands as a pail, I dragged the kayak into the ocean to finish the job. Once in the ocean, I flipped it over and used the sea water to wash out any remaining debris.

  Once I was satisfied on that front, I dragged the kayak back to the beach and placed it somewhere near where I found it in the first place. I looked at the two water tires, grateful that I hadn’t made the wrong decision and chosen one of them.

  It was time to go back home. “Do I swim or walk? That is the question.”

  I rinsed myself in the ocean one last time and then decided to walk back very closely to the dune line. My bad leg had become swollen and I needed to ice it. What I thought would be an innocent walk/swim had turned into a full-blown Ironman.

  I told myself it could’ve been worse, but I knew it couldn’t have been. I focused on the weight loss. I wouldn’t be able to get a proper look at my stomach until I got in front of a mirror. I got excited at the prospect of sharing my news with everyone. Once the house was in view, I attempted to actually skip, but stopped myself when my knee buckled.

  I got back to the house, walked upstairs to my room, took my bikini bottoms off, wrapped them in toilet paper, walked downstairs, and threw them in the kitchen trash. I grabbed my traveling ice pack out of the freezer and headed back upstairs to Lesbian Shelly’s room.

  Just then I heard the sound of something pulling into the driveway. I ran back down, looked out the window, and saw that it was my boyfriend, Sargeant.

  Well, I thought, if there’s one way to get this loser off my tail, it’s to show him my body in its current condition. I made a bold decision and opened the front door.

  “Good morning, Sargeant!” I exclaimed, covered in sand, sweat, and whatever else had managed not to come off in the ocean.

  “Well, good morning, Chelsea,” he replied, as he slowly took my body in. “I didn’t expect you to be up this early.”

  “Oh, I just went for a little jog on the beach. I’m actually glad you caught me before I showered. I want you to know this is what my body looks like in a bikini. You’re probably used to much more well-proportioned women,” I declared, jutting my bad leg out front and center.

  “Not at all.” He smiled and started walking toward me. “Every woman’s body is different. I’ve been around enough to know that.”

  This guy was even more annoying in the light of day.

  “I’m going to run up and shower,” I informed him. “Hopefully, we’ll get to spend the day together, as usual.”

  He nodded. “I’d love that.”

  I closed the door inside and headed upstairs into Lesbian Shelly’s room.

  “It’s time to rise and shine! Have I got a story for you.” She lifted her eyeshades and looked at her watch, and then regarded me groggily.

  “Well, your hair is wet, and I know that’s not from a shower, so I take it you’ve been swimming?”

  “That’s right,” I told her. “Not to sound conceited, but this is probably one of my top ten.”

  “Well, I guess so,” Shelly said. “Because you’re not wearing any underwear.”

  I looked down at myself and realized I had never replaced my bikini bottoms. “Whoopsie,” I declared, then shut her door and walked back to my own room and put on a cape.

  Later that morning, I waited until everyone had gathered around the kitchen table with full breakfast plates, and regaled the family with my morning’s activities. One of the other houseguests staying with us that weekend became so disgusted halfway through my description, he got up, excused hims