Romancing the Throne: A Guest Post by Tori Young
Tori Young is one of my favorite bloggers. Her writing ranges from humorous to introspective to downright naughty. This little ditty was born after my January guest writer selected her as the winner of his book. He said: “That chick packed a lot into her comment. I want the backstory there.” That’s how Tori’s writing leaves you. Wanting more. Even if it is unsettling or yucky (and this one really is), you will still want to read more. Follow Tori on Twitter at @toristoptalking or at The Ramblings. You can also follow her on Facebook.
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Romancing The Throne by Tori Young
He thought I was pretty. I thought he was edgy and cool. We called it love.
Ignore my fragile, needy self-esteem and ability to cry at the slightest insinuation of insult. Never mind his rough Northern accent, claiming his harsh words were meant to be jokes. We forgave each other ourselves, found at least some things in common. He worked as a waiter, and wouldn’t you know it? I love food. He is short. I am tall. He was the cosmic yin to my 6-foot yang. I can quote most lines from The Office. Sweet Destiny! He just so happened to have every season on DVD. We spent nights in his grown-up, studio apartment watching the movies because his cable was shut off. I liked his cozy little place, the thrill of having a guy bring me leftovers, and the pretty idea of finally being big enough to play house.
As our first Valentine’s Day approached, we made plans. He was thoughtful enough to book an intimate couple’s massage right in the comfort of his living room/dining room/kitchen. I went above and beyond to hand-buy from scratch a gourmet dinner from a quaint Italian eatery. I arrived with foil carry out plates from the kitchen of a West Nashville trailer known for delicacies such as fried cheese and fried ravioli.
Ever the seductive sir, he poured liquor from its plastic jug into fancy speckled glasses he’d swiped from the bar at work. I was trying for romance, too, sporting secret, frilly panties I planned to let him see. They were a stretch from my usual boring bottoms, the kind of lace’n’string thing that screamed “SEX!” or “Thrift Store Score/Box Labeled ‘Granny’s Attic’ “. And while the thought of this cheekiness made me squeamish, I went ahead with the scheduled wooing.
Sometime between 7 PM and cold pasta, a knock at the door said the masseuse had arrived. She smelled of chicken tenders. I soon learned she was a waitress alongside my beau. She assured me she was certified but did not clarify if that meant she had a license to rub me or serve booze to hungry diners in the state of Tennessee. She brought her own folding table with a head hole and a plethora of lotions, so I decided she was professional enough.
The friendly woman oiled me up as my boyfriend ate and switched out laundry. This being my first massage, my first true relationship, I tried to ignore the nagging tug in my belly. What am I doing here? Why am I with this guy? Who taught this lady to massage because I think she just broke a rib? Crazy talk! I reassured myself that I this discomfort stemmed from my not being learned in the ways of true romance. Yes, these were the joyous flutters of butterfly wings stirring my stomach so. My, what excited butterflies these were. How rumble-y in my tummy! As the stranger ran her fingers in between my toes, I felt a panicked pucker and jumped from the table into the bathroom. “You go ahead!,” I yelled to the boyfriend from my seat on his toilet.
Oh, Love Gods. Those weren’t butterflies.
The next minutes and hours were a blur of uncontrollable bowel movements and wrenching explosions.
His once cozy apartment now felt like a cage, giving me nowhere to hide, no window to crack or climb out of. I tried to disguise the disaster by flicking on a vent, running loud water from sink and tub to drown out the gory sounds.
Occasional pauses were filled with my whimpering, little begs for mercy to make it stop. Desperation gave way to creativity as I showered the whole crime scene with the baby powder I found in a cabinet. I waited for the police to arrive, called from the upstairs neighbors who warned them: Judging by the stench and cries, something has died down there. It truly was a massacre. When the shit storm cleared in the wee hours of the morning I glanced around the square-foot bathroom like a serial killer must stare down at his guilty hands. Look at the horrid things you’ve done.
I limped from the bathroom to find the boy sleeping on the couch. “Do you want to–?” I tried to feign some Betty Davis eyes to no avail. Save face, save the sexy, save something. He was typically harsh and seemingly pissed at the audacity of my intestines; he grunted and rolled over.
That relationship didn’t work out. I know. I was surprised, too. As most bad phases do, that ugly night taught me a thing or two. Some really sweet friends make a point to the “Tori shat on V-Day plans” story with dinner tables full of strangers. Even this has become an invaluable method of determining which new folks I could befriend. I ask them to pass the rolls as they hear of my deepest, darkest encounters with a toilet bowl, and if they can laugh about it, still manage to make eye contact afterwards, I know they’re my type. The ones who dry-heave and suddenly need to switch seats couldn’t handle me anyway.
My so-wrong moment reaffirmed common sense that I let myself forget back then:
Never trust anything that comes from a trailer, but always, always trust your gut.
Have any really “shitty” stories you’d like to share?
tweet us @toristoptalking & rasjacobson
Hilarious Tori!
I was not young with the blush of new love. I was late thirties, long-divorced from my first husband, and READY. We met, wooed, took dance lessons together, looked good together. I ignored the little tuggings, the warnings that said slow down, be careful… We agreed to marry, invited friends and family, had a friend design and craft our wedding rings, wrote our vows, invited dancers in kilts and sashes to usher for us–always loved the flip and kick of a kilt!! Family arrived Thursday for a Friday night, Valentine weekend wedding. Last minute nerves, grouchy step-daughter-to-be preferred her father’s chili, rings had not yet arrived from out of town jeweler, threat of Friday winter storm… Migraine had greeted me that morning, canceling planned meeting. Late night Thursday night, watching weather and wondering if guests would make… Friday morning, migraine turned into whole body fever, aches, extreme sore throat, cannot get out bed, stomach threatening to empty meager contents. Just let me sleep, I say. I’ll be fine by tonight. Damn family, find my doctor, make an appointment. Too sick to argue, I stay in bed until I’m practically carried to appointment. Oh…I’m good says the doctor…but not that good. Strep. Can’t make you well by tonight. Prescription in hand, with orders to drink loads of fluids and take acetaminophen for aches and fever, I’m taken home to get ready for wedding…with a side trip to the main post office. Wedding rings had miraculously arrived…
By my July birthday we were divorced. The body knows.
The body knows. And if we wait long enough, the body starts YELLING. It’s amazing what signs I missed (read: ignored) before that night. I knew with every part of my head that this relationship wasn’t a good one. I needed gutteral warfare before I finally took the hint!
Sometimes a body knows. It’s true. So true. He was like poison. You just didn’t know it yet. I had one of those. I wish I had a major bowel movement in front of him. That would have saved me five years of anguish.
Despite my body doing everything it could to prevent me from making one of the worst mistakes of my life, it took working with my therapist to get me out of a very icky, icky marriage that likely would have destroyed me. Circumstances were such that leaving was very messy–I was associate pastor of a church, wedding took place at the church, church ladies did the reception with was in church basement… In the minutes following the wedding it was in the transition from sanctuary to basement that the true nature of the man I just married revealed itself…and it wasn’t pretty. Over the course of that evening, the trip to and from our honeymoon dance weekend in Vermont, and the week that followed, I learned more ugliness about this man than I had in our few months courtship. I will be eternally grateful to the therapist with whom I worked, who knew me so well, who would not let me be sucked into the mire of marriage to this man. While he went on to move, get a PhD and job with federal government, his life continues to be a tragedy. I am sorry that he continues down such an unhappy road, and he truly has much in his life to mourn. However, I am glad that I did not go there with him. He needed a mother, not a wife, and I was tired of taking care of people…so much so that I also rescued myself from continuing in parish ministry, eventually becoming a teacher of young children where in “taking care” of little ones, I could help them learn to care for and respect themselves.
Tori, Thank you so much for being here this morning to tell this story. When you planted the seed of a comment last month during Dan Friedland’s #SoWrong moment, we knew we needed to hear the rest of the tale.
I’m so happy that you obliged. This is hilarious and I would love to know what ever happened to this guy. Was this mark the end of the relationship? No more Office DVD’s for you? Or what?
I think he’s been promoted. Shift manager at a buffet or something. We kept things going for a little while after the Love Bomb, but it was all clearly wrong after that. I moved. Got a big girl job. And bought my own Office DVD’s 🙂
Well, at least you learned something about the dude from all this.
Just that one dude, really. Mostly I’m still clueless. I’m married now which is a huge relief. I don’t think I was built to withstand dating.
Were any of us?
This is one of those times where you needed that guy’s face on your toilet paper…………
Hahaha. Honestly, I would’ve been happy with a few of those pine scented car fresheners and a clear way out of there.
I’ll bet there’s a market for that! Break-up TP: Crap on your ex’s face. I would have bought that product. At least twice.
Sounds like a nightmare for sure! YIKES!
I know this is probably odd, but my favorite line of this is “hand-buy from scratch a gourmet dinner from a quaint Italian eatery.” It makes it sound so fancy that you picked up carry out! 😉
Any man who will not make sure his date is not dying in the bathroom, despite the stench and fear of possibly disturbing a crime scene, is NOT a keeper. Good lesson to learn. But harsh way to learn it. Yikes.
I was trying my hardest to be fancy in my own, special, faux-adult kind of way 🙂 It was that or I could try to cook. Both options would make everybody sick, but at least the trailer food tasted good 🙂
Can you imagine? He didn’t check in? Hubby decided I was a keeper while barfing on our first date (he had a migraine). I stayed and rubbed his back for hours. I also did his laundry and folded his underwear.
On second thought, maybe I should have left. 😉
You know, I was kind of glad he didn’t check on me. I was in that immature wooing stage where I still wore makeup all the time and always smell nice. I don’t know if I could’ve handled him seeing the mess!
That’s not odd! I loved that line as well….very creative!
I’m laughing–but seriously, you poor thing and WHAT A JERK!! Hopefully your Valentines Day is shit-free this year. Just make sure your little guy gets the memo.
See, I’m still not even sure if he was really a jerk or just really immature. It’s like toy away from a toddler. He was anticipating some sassy love and such that night and got a stinky mess instead.
I hope that’s the case…or that he at least stays single forever so no woman or child has to puke alone in his household. Cause as we all know, puking alone is the pits.
Absolutely DYING laughing!! Oh my God, this is an AWESOME story!!! 🙂
Hahaha! OMG…I’m sorry you had to go through that because it sounded awful…but I’m so glad you wrote about it because…damn that was funny!!
. My shitty story: I once had an intestinal bug so bad that my boyfriend had to put my stool in a little vial given to me by my doctor so they could do a culture. I was too weak and sick to do it myself, so he literally scooped my poop for me. I ended up marrying him because that’s real love. –Lisa
Haha. God bless your husband. I wouldn’t do that for my husband or kid or sweet, old grandmother. That’s dedication, dear!
He touched your feces! Omigosh! There are no yardsticks to measure that kind of love! 😉
Oh. Em. Gee. You are my soul sister – maybe bowel sister would be more accurate? I have some tales to tell that make this one look like a picnic. I can’t repeat them, hell, I even feel uneasy conjuring them in my brain. Why must there always be a male involved that you are trying to impress? How could our own intestines betray us like that? I guess I’d have to agree that it’s a good way to sift out the duds from the keepers.
The baby powder, the desperation, this was too funny!! Good one!
These have to be the experiences the Universe throws at us just for a good laugh. The timing was ridiculous. I do remember thinking I was getting punk’ed that night. Like Ashton Kutcher slid me some laxative and maybe there was a film crew in the cupboard.
Bwahaha, that is the most amazing awful Valentine’s Day story ever. I would have been mortified had it been me, but I would have gleefully listened to you tell the sad tale over a hand-buy from scratch dinner with laughing tears streaming down my face!
See, you can hang, Bev. The real sensitive ones get so visibly uncomfortable hearing this story they make up any excuse to leave early 🙂
Funny story. What can you do? Shit happens.
Shit also hits the fan. Oh. Girl. It was gruesome!
In my house “shit happens,” every time we order from a particular Chinese restaurant. Why do we keep going back? 😉
Same reason I’ve gone back to the spaghetti trailer. The belly wants what it wants!
I can’t imagine why the romance had gone out of the evening. Strange…
I was BAFFLED. Baffled, I tell you! I tried to be as seductive as I could… working with sick, sweaty hair and some pretty rank odor.
Oh my god! This was classic, Tori. Let that be a lesson to us all: Sometimes even The Office can’t keep two people together. Also: baby powder just makes your shit stink worse. Don’t ask me how I know that.
The baby powder! Who knew! I realized only after I’d doused every inch of that 3-square-inch bathroom in the stuff.
I can’t help wondering why Unsympathetic Boyfriend wasn’t similarly afflicted. Didn’t HE also eat the hand-prepared (by which I mean bought carryout) food? Why didn’t HE come down with a case of West Nashville Revenge?
Methinks I smell a rat. Or maybe it’s something else that I smell. Either way, it doesn’t smell very good at all.
I still can’t figure out why he was fine. That definitely wasn’t a rat you smelled, Peg 🙂
I am absolutely DYING with laughter up here. Oh, sweet girl…..this is HILARIOUS and I was RIGHT there, with you, in that bathroom/moment/horror.
God, I love you, woman I’ve never met. This has made my whole week.
Liz! Have you never read, Tori?! Oh! Awesome! You MUST follow each other. You will adore each other instantly for a million reasons. 🙂
I love you, too. I’m impressed how nice you are to a total pants poo-er like me 🙂
Tori! Liz is the bestest best! You absolutely must bop over to check her out. Because to know Liz is to understand a woman who would, of course, love you — poop and all. She would have been outside the bathroom door with extra soft toilet paper. For real.
Heck, yeah! I think my sons have worn me down/worn off on me because I just read this piece again and laughed my head off. Again. Apparently, poop really IS that funny!
Funny, funny story–thanks for sharing it! I’ve had my share of disastrous dates but no shitty ones. Say, did he have a pet ferret? This scenario sounds so familiar…
Ah! No ferret. No Ben Stiller, and, unfortunately, I don’t look a thing like Jen Anniston 🙁 The poop was all there, though 🙂
I like to imagine the ending of this story with the dude getting his own West Nashville revenge after you left – but while he was on the massage table.
Is that evil?
Like he muddies the masseuse’s table? Ewwww!
Yes! A perfect ending. Not for him.
I thought about it. The great injustice of that night was that he felt totally fine. Life can be rude that way 🙂
But just imagine it – just the right pressure from the masseuse in just the wrong place at just the wrong time … I must stop thinking about this.
Oh, Tori. As much as I felt for you in that moment of what must have been supreme agony and embarrassment, I gotta say…. things happen for a reason. And like someone else said, why wasn’t HE affected?? (assuming your sh*t storm was brought on by the fancy food)
For the record, if I’d heard this story at the dinner table, I’d actually want to be friends with someone who can induce this much merriment at their own expense. 🙂
I’m going with a) stomach virus with b) a body knows when it’s time to get out. I wish that I had recognized some of these “symptoms” earlier in a few “crappy” relationships.
I never thought much about him not getting sick. It IS weird. He felt totally fine all night, you know, minus the dissappointment of having a date stinking up his bathroom 🙂
I think we would get along well. I would be one of those people laughing my a** off at dinner, but still making eye contact and tossing you a dinner roll.
Then again, I have my father’s sense of humor. And you really need to YouTube Margaret Cho’s sh*tting in the car joke. We watched her comic special for a class in college, and I was in the back cracking up at this, while everyone else was thoroughly disgusted. “You are not going to believe what I just did!!!” Seriously, you must see it! So nice to meet you, Tori!
Here’s the link for you! Enjoy!
Hahahahahahahaha and HA. We should definitely be pals, Jess.
Tori – I haven’t laughed so hard since the last time I visited your blog! Seriously, I think I may have dated this guy too. Tell me – did the pretty panties survive the torrid night in the bathroom? Hopefully, they were not wasted in this guy. LOVE your writing.
The frilly panties should’ve been another clue that this relationship was off. I hate those things, but was trying my hardest to possess one ounce of sexy. I think they got tossed after the bathroom explosion. Too many bad memories!
If anyone says they haven’t had at least one terrible affair, they lie. We all have these stories, it is how we look back on them.
Tori, I would have been laughing and throwing you the rolls at dinner.
Once, when I used to work at a pet store, a mom let her kid shit on the floor… It’s not related to your story, but sometimes I still have nightmares about cleaning it up…
Hugs!
Valerie
Love it Tori! Perfect for this crazy “holiday” that’s coming up…
Tori, I have to say that I am really a fan of your writing style and I promise that, even though my guts have failed me many times before,I’ll double check anything coming from a trailer, from now on.
Aaaaaaabsolutely Brilliant.
I smiled throughout this superb story.
Thank you for the snickering at your expense.
PS. thank God somebody didn’t light up a cigarette! Haa