Ickness Alert. Skip this entire blog post, is my advice, quite frankly.
True story: When I was an undergraduate in the arctic colds of Rochester, NY, I lived, for a while, in the on-campus housing. Now, a central facet of most dormitory buildings is the shared bathrooms. So each “hall” typically has its own set of bathrooms and showers that is shared with your neighbours. I detested these for anything but showering (and even that because my choices were rather limited, as you’ll see). My uncle has a phrase “making water” to refer to it, and that was fine. I could do that in there. Number 2, on the other hand, was a complex issue for me. Actually, it still is (as you’ll see as well, later). Anyway, I had to come up with something creative, or just die, I suppose. Now, since I was in the College of Engineering, I frequented the science and engineering library on the far end of campus. It sat right next to (and was connected, physically, with) the Computer Science building. Up on the 5th floor, the bathrooms were smaller and got cleaned at 1 in the morning every day (except weekends). Thus, my bathroom time was 2 in the morning on weekdays (including Friday). It was relatively untouched on the weekends as well (with me being the only user), so that was OK.
What? Neurotic? Me? Seriously?
The implication here is that I don’t much care for public restrooms. They tend to be dirty, filthy and disease ridden (they may not be, but I perceive them as such). This is why I go before a long trip and at the hotel at the end of the trip. Throughout the trip, I will not go (except to make water). If, on the off-chance, I do have to go (this happened once in my life, when I was 12 I think), I went in the airplane’s restroom — I was flying unaccompanied, and so I was the first one on the plane.
Oh yeah, the shower thing. I solved that by wearing rubber slippers (chappals if you’re in India) in the shower. Icked me the hell out, I can tell you.
So, yesterday, I did the salt water flush in the morning, as per usual. And I thought I’d gotten it all out of my system before I left the house (took 3 visits). I got to work, and I still felt like I had to go. This was 8:30 in the morning. So, I decided “it can’t be that much, I can just hold it till I get home.” Well, that wasn’t happening. At 9, the pressure was too much, so I had to go. I had to perform the ritual of carefully layering the seat with pristine t.p, of course. And I went. I had to. I’m almost ashamed of it.
At 11, I had to go again. Same ritual, same feeling of shame, heightened level of “ick!”
I had to stay late, so I got home at 7 that night, and I had to go once more. I don’t know if all that was from the salt water flush, because it all “whooshed,” or whether it was because I finally had something other than lemonade. But yesterday was not such a pleasant day.
The soup last night was simply delicioso. Aimee did well. she made a broth with potatoes and celery and carrots and onions and tomatoes. It was relatively bland, but the flavours of the vegetables were so rich. The master cleanse fast surely cleared up my nasal passages (!). My sense of smell has definitely improved significantly. I used to have a horrible (read, virtually non-existent) sense of smell up to now.
I brought some soup for lunch, and am about to eat it. I also brought with me today two apples (of which I’ve eaten the green one) and a pear, just in case. I’ve gone through about a third of a gallon of apple juice as well. This isn’t a starving fast, that’s for sure.
My sincerest apologies for all the ickiness in the post, if you’ve made it this far. Frankly I’m astonished that I even divulged all that. Just, um, keep it to yourself, yeah?
My on-the-scene thoughts of Day 1
I bet you wish you had skipped right through to Day 3.
Edit: added navigation