The Almost Accident: Karma is a Bitch

Matthew Gates 5m 1,125

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

A while ago, I wrote about working in a liquor store. Recently, I was asked, “What was your most embarrassing moment?” And while I’ve had many, there are just two that stand out regarding almost nearly the same incident. Two incidents in which an accident almost occurred and one which it did occur, but both equally embarrassing. I feel I can share these embarrassing moments now because well, some time has passed, and now I can laugh at them both.

The first one, not involving any situation at work, was where I had caught a stomach virus, and like an idiot, I thought it would be a great idea to go running. Maybe what I had would escape me – and boy, was I right. I had just bought new jogging sneakers and got into my shorts and shirt. I started off jogging and then began to run. I ran about a 2-mile radius from my home. I used to walk it everyday for a few years, but lately, I had gotten daring and started to jog most of it, and then it turned into running it.

Well, today was certainly not the best day to do that, but I decided I would go anyway. I managed to run almost the 2 miles, passed a portapotty, and continued to run, thinking nothing of it. All of a sudden, about a quarter mile from home, I had to sit down on the curb in order to control the tension battling away in my stomach. After a few minutes, I felt it was safe to get up and finish my jog home. Unfortunately, my body thought differently. As soon as I stood up, I just went, out in public, out in the middle of the street, in front of anybody who was driving by and could see me. It was dripping down my legs, on to my brand new sneakers, and I smelled really bad and was very embarrassed. I got home, ran directly into the shower with all my clothes on including my new sneakers, and turned the shower on. A few minutes later, my brother opened the bathroom door and asked, “What smells like shit?” Realizing what happened, he laughed his ass off. What a day.

The second incident occurred a few years later, in a somewhat similar situation, though not as in public as it could have been. I had been working at a liquor store in downtown Chicago, and rode my bike to and from work everyday on the biker’s path.

It just so happened that this day, a worker called out, and another worker came in to take his place. A few hours into the job, it was dinner time and some man came in to drop off a pizza for the guy who wasn’t working that day. The guy who dropped off the pizza worked at the pizza place. He thought one of my co-workers was working that day, but he was not. Before we could tell him the guy wasn’t in, he left promptly. Me and the co-worker who were working that night were stuck with a very fine deep dish pizza.

What was on it? Underneath the cheese was bacon, ham, and sausage. It looked delicious and smelled delicious. We debated on calling the guy who had the pizza delivered, but it looked so delicious, and we were starving, and so we swore to our deaths that we would never tell a soul, especially not the absent co-worker about what happened.

We agreed to each eat half the entire pizza during the night so nothing was left, and then we would throw the box out in the dumpster, to never be seen again. And it was damn delicious.

I was fine for the night and when we closed at 3 AM, I got on my bike and rode home on the Biker’s Path. On my way home, I felt stomach pains. I ignored them for a while and kept riding. Unfortunately, those pains caught up to me and I had to go to the bathroom. It was like something hit eject and I really had to go. I knew of a place on the biker’s path that usually had a portapotty, which was near the baseball field. It had been there the day before and even that evening when I drove to work I had seen it. But driving past it, circling the area where I knew it to be, it was not there!

I really had to go and I was still at least 2 or 3 miles from home! I sat on my bike for a minute, thinking about what I could do, and hoping those growing stomach pains would surpass. They did not. I quickly look around and began riding for a short time, stumbling across a more shielded and wooded area on the biker’s path. It was so bad that I knew I wasn’t going to make it at all. I quickly rode into the woods as best as I could and began to remove everything I was wearing, stripping down to complete nakedness, to avoid any mess on my clothing. After I removed everything, I had to do what I had to do and I went. Relief! Until a cop car drove by, as there was a park nearby and a parking lot, and I was still in the middle of going.

I quickly hid behind a tree until he passed. Luckily, the cop car hadn’t seen me, though I had already worked up my excuse for what exactly I was doing naked in the middle of a wooded park area. I realized I had only a few napkins in my backpack. I ended up using whatever napkins I had, but still needed more. I grabbed whatever leaves I could and proceeded to finish up.

I got dressed, feeling relieved, and rushed to a water fountain. I washed my bottom and my hands and felt clean again. Karma is a bitch. You could call it an almost-accident, because I did make it, but not exactly where I should have made it.

The next night, the co-worker came in asking about the pizza and we told him we had no idea about what happened. He ended up blaming the owner for eating his pizza. He was later fired for an unrelated incident. But for the year or so that I worked there, me and that other co-worker never revealed that secret, and I never had revealed my secret of what happened that night to anyone until recently. The pizza was great and probably worth the crappy (pun intended) experience, but I’m betting it was karma that got the best of me for stealing a pizza and lying about it.

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