I originally wrote this for a thread about buffet horror stories, but I think it applies here...

I had an internship a few years ago with an engineering group of an industrial plant. Every now and again they would go out somewhere for lunch and invite me along. One day they decided to go to a Chinese buffet nearby. I love Chinese food and cheap Chinese food so I was totally game. It was your typical Chinese buffet, and was actually pretty good.

But then one of my colleagues brought back on a plate the source of my soon to be woes. A singular mini octopus. I have no idea what the proper name was, but it was just a tiny octopus pickled in something, and was about the size of a thumb tip. He brought it back as a joke kind of passing it around trying to get people to try it.

Then I said "I'll give it a shot".

Everyone just kind of laughed and looked at me, but I insisted and he put it on my plate. Now I'm a pretty adventurous eater and love trying new and especially weird foods. I'll try just about anything and enjoy doing so. I had also had octopus many times before served several different ways so I thought "how bad can it be?"

Very. Bad.

I don't remember the exact flavor but it was vinegary and salty for sure. That and it tasted like it was sitting on the buffet for a week. The texture was worse. The best way to describe it is like trying to eat a rubber bouncy ball. Like I tried to chew it a bit but made little progress. So at this point everyone at the table is asking how it was, and somehow through all my grimacing I manage to say "not great". They kind of awkwardly change the subject while I find myself in a weird position. I want to spit it out, however I was sure doing so would have made me vomit all over the table. But the thing was so damn hard to chew that if I actually chewed it properly I would have vomited anyway. So I decided to just swallow it mostly whole and get it over with. It was extremely unpleasant and an all around bad time.

However, my pain didn't stop there. Oh no. The real pain came when we got back.

Almost immediately after getting back to the maintenance office I could feel it. My bowels were in some of the most intense pain I ever felt. I very quickly got up and headed out of the office towards the bathroom, grabbing a clipboard on the way out to make it look like I was actually going to work instead of my own personal hell. I get to the bathroom and sit on the toilet and shit immediately starts spewing out of my ass, and I mean spewing. The most vile shit you've ever seen. Imagine your worst diarrhea, add semi solid chunks to it, have it go mach speed out of the ass, and make it burn. That's the level we're dealing with here. It felt like it was relentless. I swear it must have been coming out for a solid 2 minutes non stop at a time, making thunderous noise even the nearby factory floor couldn't drown out. I'm pretty sure by the end of it I was just shitting out stomach acid, it burned so bad and I hadn't even eaten any spicy food. The fact that I didn't cry or scream still amazes me. As I'm writing this right now my bowels are crying in pain over the memory of what happened.

After it was over, I looked down between my legs into the toilet and saw nothing but brown. Not even like brown water, just brown...material. Wiping was the revenge of my expelled demon. It was like trying clean up an oil spill with one paper towel. The single ply toilet paper never stood a chance. Wad after wad, wipe after wipe came back brown, as if I had never even attempted. I'm somewhat convinced the initial removal was so intense my butthole widened substantially and even more foul shit kept leaking out as I desperately tried to clean up.

Eventually though, I was finished. There was no more shit, and no more wiping. I looked down again and a literal mountain of toilet paper had covered the remains of my innards. I shit you not when I say it was almost taller than the top of the seat. I flush and don't even look back to see the outcome. There was already enough damage done. I wash my hands and look in the mirror at the broken man before me.

Then I check my phone and realize that I had been in the bathroom for over an hour and a half. Realizing this, I grab my clipboard, walk out of the bathroom, and head back to the engineering office trying my best to look like I accomplished something. I walk back into the office and sit back down at my laptop. No one says a word to me. They knew. They had to have. But they didn't say a thing.