The Wife and I flew up to PA for a family wedding. Since we were up that way, we decided to stay with her father and his girlfriend, who share a home right outside of Philadelphia. Neither of us had ever been to Philly, so we figured this would be a good opportunity to see the sights.

The city itself is actually quite nice. Lots of famous landmarks and interesteing architecture. Oh, and they give away free shit for no reason. They just give it the hell away. I guess it's for product review or brand recognition, but they'll drop these huge crates on the street corner, and people will get in line to take whatever they're giving out. When we were there, it was those Handi-Vac vaccuum sealers and they were handing them out by the twos. I was like "Sweet! Now I don't have to buy a wedding gift!"

We drove out of the city to this place called West Goshen Township. Apparently, PA is a commonweatlh, which means they do some pretty odd things like call towns townships, and make access to alcohol about as clumsy as possible. You can't buy beer anywhere except a bar or a beer warehouse. And you have to go to state-run liquor stores for wine and the hard stuff. Whatever. So this town where the girlfriend lives is really upper crust. The schools are expensive and manor-like, with fenced in manicured pastures around them. I've never seen so many private schools in such a small town.

Her house is very nice. It's small, but it's been tastefully maintained and updated. You know, they kept the cool stuff (original doors, floors, etc) and updated things like ladnscaping, added an A/V setup in the basement and a hot tub on the patio. Well, one of the things that they decided to keep 'period' were the plumbing fixtures. Don't get me wrong, these still looked nice, but the reason plumbing fixtures have changed is because the old shit is just not very user friendly.

She made this great dinner, and I had two portions. Needless to say, after that much beef tips and rice, any normal person has a serious poop on deck. So I go upstairs to the bathroom and briefly survey the scene. Toilet paper? Check. Clean toilet? Check. Then I step closer. The hole at the bottom of the toilet bowl is about as big as the hole in the middle of a Lifesaver. This antique peice is not going to be able to handle the 21st-Century assault that is about to come charging out of my ass. I decide to hold off. We're only here for one more night, and if I can hold my poo for another 24 or 36 hours, then I'll be good.

Seriously, there wasn't even a plunger handy. I go back downstairs and sit on the patio with everyone else, but all I can think about is this Impossible Toilet. I mean, how do they take a shit int his house? There isn't a reasonably sized toilet? Do they shit outside? I guess, maybe. As The Wife and I are sitting in bed, I decide to consult with her.

"Babe, I seriously have to take a dump; and this woman's toilets are a joke."
"What are you, stupid?"
"Seriously. Go look at her toilets, and come back and tell me how I'm supposed to shit 7 pounds of beef and rice into that thing without some serious power tools." I shove her out of bed and make her go check this out. She comes back, get's into bed and says, "Dude, I don't know what to tell you."
Well shit. I thought she would actually have an idea. She says, "Maybe you should go a little, and do multiple flushes?"
This does not satisfy me. I can tell that what I have inside me is a giant log, and I won't be able to cleave it with my sphincter. It's just too massive, too solidly organized.

I wake up in the morning, and the urge to shit is so intense it carves a look of obvious discomfort on my face. The Wife sees me and tells me I need to go take a shit before I hurt myself. I figure if I go now while everyone's still asleep, at least I can clean up any overflow without anyone noticing. I decide that I have to do what I have to do, and hike off to meet my fate.

I make another more thorough plunger check that is completely fruitless. These people must have turds like robin's eggs. I decide that my only option is to try and break this giant dump into peices, so there I am: hovering over a toilet, looking down through my legs and hoping I don't end up shitting all down the back of the toilet. I am completely disgusted at the sight of shit coming out of my own ass, but I have no choice.

The first barrage comes out the bomb bay with such force that I push so hard to pinch it off that my knees buckle and I damn near end up falling over. I look down in the bowl and see that my dump is practically choking the worlds tiniest crapper. My shit is actually laughing at me.

I hit the flusher and watch as the toilet begins to work it's ass off. The bowl is filling, and the higher it gets the wider my eyes become. Oh Lord, my shit water is going to be coming through the floor into the room below isn't it? The bowl is now just over half full and rising, and I'm pretty sure at this point we'll be leaving a day early. This bitch is not going to want me in her house after I get my poo all over it. At three quarters full, I'm already hobbling around the bathroom with my pants around my ankles, grabbing towels off their racks in preparation for a shit flood of biblical proportions.

Then it happens. There is a deep thunking noise like a bass drum, and my shit disappears down the hole. Success! Sweet God yes! The weight of the water must have squished it through the head of the needle. I repeat this process several times over, probably flushing three or four payloads down the toilet. About thirty minutes later I come out of the bathroom and The Wife is laughing at me. "What were you doing in there? Beating a drum?"

That was ridiculous. Speaking of which, remind me to tell you about the Ridiculous Clock. These people were all about frustrating housewares.