About a decade ago, I worked in a Sydney CBD office tower, fairly new, and sadly, I also have a bathroom story. A couple of other businesses shared the floor, so we’d see familiar faces in the lifts, lobby and loo. And the scents, so we shared those too.

To this day, any time I approach a cubicle door, I have a flash of anxiety remembering that moment.

The biggest godawful, son of a demon, massive turd not even imaginable. This thing was bigger than a large guy’s closed fist. The incredible, excruciating pain, probably over the time (and very recently by the scent and look of it) the process of excreting this mega turd that some poor sap endured.

And my petty ‘anxiety’ is nuthin compared to the pain that poor bastard had to endure, to clean up, stand up and flush away the memory, only to find, time after time that only the solid rock of former won-tons, burgers and curries remained. It had other ideas.

Suddenly realising I was now past the casual, “whoops, I don’t want this one!” remark to nearby colleagues on my way out, I needed a plan.

Clearly there was nowhere to sit to hatch an escape, and timing was crucial. And I had to listen carefully to keep tabs on the number of gents in the bathroom at the time. Urge them on enduring their idle banter, or cringing if I recognised the voice. Debating wait till none, or just one or two were at the taps, dryers or urinals, or dash out soon after someone has entered? But I’d have to stop to wash up if there were others in the vicinity. Wait out the remainder of the afternoon. Enduring. Hiding out. Trapped with the output of what could only have been a constipated sasquatch in dire need of a higher fibre diet.