Diarrhea.

This story is a warning, which you can file in these stressful end-of-year-coursework-deadline-times as LEST YE NOT BE AS STUPID.

I know, the parental guidance note for my entire life, right?

It seemed like a good idea to try one of those little energy drinks- the ones that come in shot form. Why waste time drinking half a litre of Relentless when the bang for my buck was right there in miniature form, you know?

(OH! Rude! Normally I prefer king-sized.)

(PENIS.)

I know the little buggars are lethal. A bit like the Thai Buckets that have the Red Bull so strong that it’s illegal in most of the developed world i.e. not sensible but quite a lot of fun. But then, this is the girl that once drank three Red Bulls in a row because somebody once said it was like dropping Acid but legal. Three Red Bulls? I tried to snog a tree and then threw up. Not even Charlie Sheen would call that winning.

But half an hour after my energy shot and nope. Nada. Nothin’. No buzz, no wings, no super-essay-writing powers. Lethal my arse, I thought. I wanted a pumping heart, x-ray vision, and fingers that typed faster than something really fast. I walked around the library for a bit with blurred vision thinking my high was about to kick in, but then I realised I’d just had forgotten my glasses.

So I went and bought another.

On reflection, that is exactly like when I went to Cambodia and took a pack of laxatives because one wasn’t enough. Kinda like how only the one bloke is never really enough. Or one MaltEaster.

I’m leading into a poop story here, because poo jokes are dead funny. This is especially true if your surname is Williams and you grew up with a dad who didn’t drop twins off at the pool daily, but sextuplets. Hi, Dad!

My constitution is a bloody good one. You’re reading the only person in the history of the planet to have gone to New Delhi and gotten CONSTIPATION. I was hoping to lose 5 pounds through Delhi-Belly but instead I didn’t shit for ten days.

Then it happened again in a border town near where they filmed Tomb Raider. Blocked. Up. Not even Angelina would have been able to fight the terrorist in my bowels, holed up in there like it was paying rent or something.

TEN DAYS. Do you know what happens to your gut if you store nowt but lentils inside you until you can’t even sit down because it’s so painful? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENS: a pack of laxatives.

Nothing happened after the first couple of pills. So I took a few more. And then more, and then had this DEAD CLEVER epiphany whereby I figured I’d just take ‘em all because like, what harm could it do.

I even went to sleep as I waited for my- ahem- movement. And boy did it hit me when it came. BAM. I was up out of bed and hovering over the squat-and-drop quicker than you can say EYE OF A NEEDLE.

I really hadn’t thought it through. Suddenly, in that little hut room in a third world country, with the onions I’d had with lunch rising in my throat and my (since-revealed-as-a-bit-of-a-plonker) boyfriend just the other side of the paper-thin wall I realised I was about to spend four hours squatting over a hole in the ground as I tried not to poop up my own calves.

I failed.

If it is indeed on your list of things to do before you die, take it off. Vomiting from one end, pooping from the other, and trying to act like everything is FINE! JUST FINE! when said boyfriend tries to come and help out is just not fun.

Understatement.

And after two shots of Red Bull I remembered this lesson, because it happened again. And do you know what I just realised? If writing about my vagina has gotten me laid (BELIEVE IT) then writing about my ablutions is so gonna get my (shitted-up) ass dumped. Woospies.

Essay done, and energy drink high never found, I went home and said hi to my Sweet Potato Risotto again. For a really long time. I was 24 when I went in that bathroom, and had three kids, a mortgage and two ex-husbands by the time I came out. As well as green poo.