Single in Sandpoint: A deep, dark, smelly secret

By Scarlette Quille
Reader Columnist

Since the age of 17, I have been harboring a secret. I committed a crime, orchestrated a cover up and got away with it. Today, I am going to wipe the slate clean.

My story starts back in the summer after my senior year of high school. I was 17 years old and enjoying my last summer in Sandpoint before heading off to college. At the time I was dating a young man from Coeur d’Alene. He was also 17, but still in high school. This point alone doomed the relationship, but we were 17, and therefore dipshits. Looking back, I feel bad about what I put that poor kid through. I was essentially his first “serious” girlfriend but he was not my first boyfriend.

In the four short months we were together I managed to crash into his mother’s Volvo with my beater truck during a clandestine beer transporting operation. After the beer incident, as fate would have it, I contracted chicken pox at the age of 17. This saint of a teenage boyfriend stayed on my parents’ couch and took care of me for several days. Our relationship consisted heavily of me helping him mastermind lies to tell his parents so that he could come to Sandpoint and party. This required dangerous driving back and forth from Sandpoint to Coeur d’Alene. My parents adored The Saint, as he was a celebrated athlete and willing to take on the arduous task of their “free-spirited” daughter. His parents were counting down the days until I left for college.

Both sets of parents eventually caught on to the lying pattern and decided that it was safer for us to stay at each other’s houses than sneak around. I was to stay in the guest bedroom at his house and he slept on the couch at mine. His house was Christian and fancy, and they had extra china and guest rooms. My house was nice, but more country. My dad liked to walk around toting a rifle at 5 a.m. to shoot the crows that were “killing my baby hummingbirds.” I hated staying at the Saint’s house. It felt like going to reform school.

The Saint’s mother was gifted at creating an atmosphere of anxiety and expectations. She could give you a look that shot straight to your core and even though she was saying “hello” it was obvious that she meant “soon my son will see you for the backwoods hussy you really are.”

It was my last weekend before college, and she had invited me to stay for the weekend. She had gone all out making us reservations at a fancy restaurant, even inviting her mother over.

The weekend started out with dinner at a fancy restaurant on Lake CD’A. We were dressed up, awkwardly navigating the adult world. Because I was a cheeky 17-year-old and aware of the much older and more distinguished diners in the room, I decided to try to break the tension and do a “cheers” with The Saint. When I lifted my virgin daiquiri to clink glasses with him, I saw an entire room of eyes staring at me, my coordination succumbed to an anxious wave and the glass slipped out of my hand. The daiquiri glass hit the appetizer plate on the way down causing it to loudly shatter and explode red liquid onto The Saint’s crotch, my dress, my shoes and the fancy white table linens. We decided to stay and eat. However when we arrived back at The Saint’s house, I couldn’t help but notice his mother’s smirk. Did she call the restaurant and have them cover all my utensils with WD-40? Paranoia was setting in. Was The Saint’s mom that evil?

She had been feeding me non-stop, and my stomach was starting to hurt.

I have a shy waste elimination system. I can not urinate if I think someone can hear me, and unless I am in confirmed solitude I need to turn the faucet on in order to use the restroom. I have spent my life orchestrating my bathroom trips so that other people are not aware or involved. I cannot look another human being in they eye if they know I just took a dump.

I have suffered on countless occasions because of this. While in “vacation mode” I can go two to four days without making a biological deposit, but the combination of fancy food and nerves knocked my digestive tract off balance.

About 48 hours into the weekend with the Saint family, we were having family movie night. This took place in a basement family room with an adjacent bathroom. This meant that everyone in the room watched you get up, go to the bathroom and could even hear you flush.

I had been legitimately holding it for around eight hours at this point. I wasn’t eating, barely drinking and all attempts I had made to eliminate the waste anonymously (i.e. during my shower time and in various public restrooms) were fruitless. My bowels had betrayed me.

At the tender age of 17, I had to face my fear or shit my pants. With the movie as a distraction, I could use the bathroom unnoticed, right? It would only take a couple of seconds as I could literally feel my feces “crowning.” I would just turn on the faucet, which was normal for me, quickly make the deposit, then use a bunch of fancy soap to eliminate any odor. It seemed like a foolproof plan.

I executed my plan perfectly. It took less than 60 seconds. I flushed, began washing my hands and smugly looked down at the toilet. To my horror, the toilet had some sort of mechanical issue. There in the bowl resided one average-sized log of fecal matter. I almost died. I wished I would have died, but my body resisted death, because when they found my body, everyone would know that the shit in the bowl was mine. I had to think fast. If I was a character in a DC comic book, this was the day when I transformed from anxious twerp into a hardcore villain taking her first steps toward a life of crime.

Pouring sweat, I left the water running as I checked the back part of the toilet for any easily fixable mechanical issues. I considered placing the log in the tank, upper decking The Saint’s mom. It did seem kind of funny, but too dangerous, as the toilet was broken and the discovery would happen while I was still under her roof. I considered placing it in the trash can, or stuffing it into the drain of the sink, both options seemed time consuming and risky. I looked toward the heavens for an answer. There it was; a window. It was ground level and over a garden. I would just simply wrap my hands in toilet paper, grab the turd and throw it out the window into the garden. No one would ever know the truth.

That’s exactly what happened. I threw a piece of shit out of the fancy people’s window and into their garden, and then left town for college the next day.

I would do it again if I had to. There is a point in everyone’s life when they find out if they are a little bit more villain or superhero.

To legit to shit,
Scarlette Quille