On Bowel and Plate Tectonic Movements

It seems as if this blogger owes my fellow co-pirate blogger (Kate) an apology. Indeed. It was, after all an “earthquake” in wussy seismological terms. Which by the way, who the hell studies seismology? In any case, I stand by the sentiment of my original Bah Humbugging. First, I don't care if it registered 5.1 on the wussy Richter (which by the way, anyone with half a brain knows that poor little Rich Richter was constantly bullied on the school yard cause he was so easily startled. The kids would chant: Rich! Rich!, You're a B......!” You get the point). The fact remains that it was a real wusser. I've experienced flatulence with more force.

Which brings me to my second reason for issuing a Bah Humbugging (these don't come lightly). I've experienced two, REAL earthquakes on the toilet!

April 22nd, 1991. This nine year old yipper snapper, his sprightly sister and their gentlemanly father headed out to the Dole Fresh Fruit building (then, my dad's place of employment) early on one bright Saturday morning. This was a common occurrence back then, probably to give my motherly mother some motherly rest. My sister and I loved running around the huge building complex. We pretended it was a place called Dodo Land, where the evil critters were the Caca People. We had great battles, and lost many fellow Dodos, but somehow we were always victorious. My dad would take care of some work while we were there, and everyone was happy.
I remember being on the toilet, with my sister washing her hands at the sink. This young man is not known for quick poops, so I just sat there and did my thing. Then it came. Holy crap it came! The earthquake, that is. 7.6 of Richy Richter's glorious points. Amid my sister's laughter, I wiped, flushed and ran out to see the building next door dropping windows one 6x6 foot pane of glass at a time. From then, I don't remember the exact order of events. We went outside, called my mom (who was at a department store chock full of panicking morons) and went home to find a broken pipe in the back yard, and some stuff scattered on our floor.

Check out wikipedia for details on this ground shaker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Costa_Rica

Round two. Unfortunately, I don't remember the date, and to be perfectly honest, it's because this time it wasn't as big a rumble as my most memorable earthquake experience (see above for a refresher). I do know the following. It was sometime between 1992 and 1996, because we were in San Jose on visit from Honduras. To be more specific, we were at my mom's maternal grandparent's house (Carlos and Anita Diaz). Ever since I can remember, we would go visit them several times a week. As a young kid (probably around 5 years old) I would play soccer with “el otro papi” (the other papi, so dubbed to differentiate between my mom's father, also called “papi”) in their front yard. We also sat around their dinning table or on the couch adjacent to it, ate salami, some yummy brown cookies, drank Pepsi, and ate tons of Papi Diaz' ice cream (he founded “Helados Diaz”, and ice cream factory in Costa Rica. Which, as a side note, the only time I have ate such delicious ice cream has been when I've had Hersheys Ice Cream. “It's Premium!”).
So, it was probably the pepsi, salami, cookie and ice cream concoction that sent me to my office. There I was—this time in the more advanced stages of the excretory cycle than in my previous toilet tremmor episode—when again, it started f'ing trembling! This time, I made my way to the backyard, to find my great grandparents, my mom and sister waiting for me. I think my sister just smiled this time.

So, two days ago, after I failed to feel the “earthquake” on my way to the throne, you'd think that I would pause and rethink my metabolic strategy, right? Hell no! Duty called, and I served! Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you want to look at it), no plate tectonic movements this time. It was all bowels.

Adieu.