I think the chicken salad at the Indy doesn’t agree with me. The last two times I’ve eaten it, I’ve had, shall we say, “digestive distress.” This is probably more a result of going out on a delivery, having a dog lick my hands, then failing to wash my hands after returning to the store. It’s a bad habit of mine, but I dare you find a delivery driver who doesn’t wash his hands to make food unless that food is for a customer (or at least, a customer who is in the store watching).

So, last Saturday, I made myself a chicken salad melt before business picked up. Sliced the ends off the roll, melted some yellow American cheese over it, topped it off with some pickles and lettuce, and scarfed it right down. It was really really good.

And then my stomach started making some very disgusting noises. Well, stomach = bowels. You know how it is.

I spent about ten minutes on the Indy’s toilet. First of all, the Indy’s bathroom isn’t exactly the prettiest bathroom in the world. One wall is devoted to a storage rack for industrial storage. The walls are painted a sickening baby blue (when Gary was painting, he just bought whatever was on sale). The toilet itself is broken — it isn’t enough to work the flush-lever, you’ve actually got to hold it in place. Because the Indy’s staff is almost entirely male, the toilet itself is … well, you can imagine. Suffice to say, by the time I finally felt well enough to get off the toilet (the seat of which was soaked in my butt sweat). How do I know the chicken salad was to blame? Mix chicken salad with bodily waste and that’s the odor which permeated the room.

(Ick).

Of course, as it turned out, my bowels were not completely vacant, as I would soon find out. There were six runs in the store. I was up first, so I ran an order into the industrial park, and came back for two more (the other driver had already left on his). I had two more down to Cranbrook. And so there I am at the door of an elderly couple when my bowels start asking me, “Hey, um, toilet?” Got paid, and then just flew through side-streets and apartment complexes with one goal in mind: my apartment, my bathroom, my toilet.

Don’t worry (I know you weren’t), I made it in time — barely. Undid the belt as I was running into the building, kicked my shorts and boxers off as I bolted as quickly as possible through the living and dining room, then unclenched my butt the second I dropped myself onto the toilet.

Bliss. Pure, unadulterated, unimaginable bliss.

The kicker is that I was able to drop off my second delivery and still beat the other guy back.

Meanwhile, I’ll be staying away from the chicken salad …