Chapter 1

What are your life's most embarrassing and uncomfortable moments? Not having enough money to pay at the counter of Wal-Mart? Been there. Vomiting in the bedroom while your sister is having a slumber party? Done that! Sent an anonymous hate mail to your teacher by accident? Okay, I haven't done THAT… yet. No, what I have experienced in my 15 years of life is far more embarrassing than what's listed above. See, I have a 'thing' for getting humiliated with—get ready—toilets!

That's right, toilets! I'm very ashamed to reveal this here today, but, you have to admit it, what I've been through is not unique! I'm positive you guys out there have done worse, and the memories are well hidden, buried, and trashed in the bottom of your closets. Well, here goes, 'Toilets and Me, a Tale'.

Do you know these moments in your childhood that you play pretend? I'm sure you do. Among my favorite play pretends include the 'mad scientist'. My mom never liked cleaning up after me and my 'experiments'. What I would do is take a bunch of toilet paper, well folded, and wet it with cold and hot water, pretending they were acids. When I would be done, I would just throw the roll-and-a-half bunch of paper down the toilet and flush. And…you know what happens with that much paper at once—it clogs.

Anyways, ever since the habit of using so much paper stuck on me like a mole, and, soon enough, our plumber would have a regular visit each two months to clear our toilet. You can imagine, my mom was MAD! One day, she came up to me and glared at me, saying that if I clogged our toilet one more time, well, I wouldn't want to know what would happen.

I was afraid of my mom, and I admit I still am, because she is NOT a person you can just play with their nerves. So you can imagine the frustration I felt when the toilet was clogged AGAIN. This time, I didn't dare to come out the bathroom. My sister must've peed in her pants that day, but I didn't care. As usual, it was due to my extensive and not-so-eco-friendly amount of hygienic paper flushed at once. At the first flush, the water passed a little, however the level of the water rose above the usual.

Of course, cold sweat was cascading down my back! By the third flush, I had used every product I could find in the bathroom. Toothpaste, bleach, mouth wash, clothe-washing liquids and powders—you name it, I used it! Sadly, though, no product lived up to its name…

I knew there was only one solution to this problem.

I had to stick my hand down that hole.

I know you would love to hear that I hesitated several times before sticking my right hand in that thing, but, to tell you the truth, I didn't. I didn't even think about it for a millisecond. The sound of my mom's scold and her palm slashing my cheek was all that occupied my thoughts. The next thing you know, my hand is as far down the bowl as it can go! The water was icy, and I tried to forget that what I was exposing my hand to what was also home to 6,000 different kinds of germs.

After like an hour down the toilet, the problem was fixed. No, I did not brush away the sweat on my forehead—or at least not with my right hand. When I closed the bathroom door, the most peaceful feeling hit my senses. I was KO. And I also started using less paper…And I didn't eat with my right hand for a week.

I've never told this to anyone ever before. Not even to my diary! A story like this was surely going to get me singled out in school, and I would be known as the girl that can stick her hand down the toilet.

Haha… But that is not the only thing I've done! No way! You haven't heard the story of the girl who needed to go so bad to the bathroom at the beach that she dug up a hole in the sand and just did it? No? Well, here it is:

Summer 2009. I was still a kid with no morals. But that doesn't matter. My mom and aunt took my sister and I as well as our two cousins to the beach. Back then, we used to spend the entire day playing in the sand or in the water and whatever. The only time you got to go empty your bladder was… well all the time, considering the ocean was right behind you.

But if you want to do some serious business, then, I'm sorry to say you'll have to hold it. It was one of the public beaches, where showers are built, not to function, but to decorate.

And so I was here, sitting on the sand, trying to take my mind off the problem I was facing by making a castle. My two cousins beside me knew that I needed to go, simply laughing. I don't blame them. Who wouldn't, right? Anyways, I was so desperate that I just turned to them and said: "Maybe I could dig a hole and do it?"

They looked at me for a sec, and since they were daredevils, they said it was a good idea and that I should do it. I, as desperate as I was, dug a hole, shoved myself in, and just did it. I didn't dare to look at the woman who was right behind me, probably glaring at my neck. When my business was done, I just covered the hole again and that was the end of it.

Like the other story, this one was kept a secret among the witnesses. Or at least, I hope so. Oh, common! Like YOU didn't do it!