Mastering the Squat Shitter

(Excerpt from "Totally Losing Face and Other Stories")

Upon arriving in Singapore, the Lion City, I was overcome by an incredible urge to deposit some waste. I pushed my luggage cart aimlessly around the airport until I noticed a bright blue and white sign with an arrow that said, “Toilets.” Bingo. I followed the arrow and sure enough I ended up in a toilet. And luckily it seemed to be of the modern, clean looking variety.

An attendant smiled brightly as I entered. I returned the smile, then felt horrible for leading him on. I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, so I said in a gruff voice, “Shit a brick, where?” just in case his English was bad. Much to my surprise he responded in damn good English, “Fair sir, the stalls on your left will definitely meet your needs,” then he smiled brightly again.

“They’re extremely nice at this airport,” I thought. I left my cart with the attendant after trying unsuccessfully to park it in a location so as to not block the entrance. I ventured to the stall area and only one of the six stalls was available. The other five were occupied by the smelliest shits in the world. Their gaseous expulsions bounced off the acoustic walls of the toilet like a bomb blast. “Good gravy!” I gagged after inhaling far too much of their offensive odor. “How about a courtesy flush! You’re killing me and all the inhabitants in here! As well as the plants! I mean you’re pealing the paint on the walls!” I barked out hoping they would get the hint and flush! The attendant came over and sprayed some deodorizer trying in vain to freshen up the putrid air.

If I didn’t have the urge to take a massive dump, I would have waited outside until the air cleared, but I had to go. I felt a ten-pound baby wiggling inside of me.

I held my breath and walked towards the available stall. I could see it was available because it had a blue sign near the handle indicating that it was not occupied. A red sign denotes that the stall is inhabited. That’s a nice feature. In some countries, they don’t have this simple courtesy. Instead people are forced to try every stall door and knock wildly sometimes breaking down the door and barging in on you when you’re right in the middle of your business. And when someone knocks, what’s the proper protocol? Do you knock back? Yell? Grunt? Fart? Who knows?

But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I approached the available stall holding my breath whilst five stinkers chimed away at their porcelain instruments. As I neared my stall, I noticed a sign above it that read, “Mind Your Head When Squatting?” Strange, what did that sign mean? The ceiling was fifteen feet high and the stall door was about ten feet high. Surely management did not want me to worry about hitting my head on the ceiling or the doorframe. Maybe they received a lot of basketball players in this airport. But even then, they’d have to be like giants in order to hit their heads. Odd.

I kicked the door open (I don’t like to touch too many things in these public stalls) and voilà, there in front of me was the dreaded squat shitter: a little pear-shaped porcelain boat set right into the ground. It looked like a large banana split cup.

I was about to turn around and conduct my business elsewhere, but by this time the head of my turd was sticking right out, and I really needed to eject it. So I quickly decided to give the old squat shitter a go. Why not? When in Rome. I was told later that squat shitters are healthier to use than regular shitters. I’d like to see the results from that report!

(To continue reading this story, please purchase a copy of "Totally Losing Face and Other Stories").

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Excerpt from "Mastering the Squat Shitter", a short story in Hillel Groovatti's new book of short fiction entitled Totally Losing Face and Other Stories.