Genes are an important factor in determining life success, let’s face it.  Tall people get more promotions.  Hot chicks suffer no accountability for rudeness.  Asians are intuitively better at math.  Hot chicks are not required to learn.  The list goes on and on.  On the genetic checklist, unfortunately my horde of bragging rights is decidedly slim.  I’m short, slow, buck-toothed, moley, poorly endowed, and average in every other category.  I’m the left-over, dried-out Play-doh from 3rd grade playtime formed into a sarcastic, bitter jerkweed.

The one thing that Little, Baby Jesus blessed me with upon my birth is my stomach.  I have the intestinal fortitude of a billy goat. I can eat anything, free from repercussions. But with every superpower there is kryptonite.

First, let me explain to you the indefeatable qualities of my guts.  Two years ago I went with my wife and her family to Vietnam.  Like most developing countries, the warning to Westerners is this: under no circumstances, under pain of death or public castration, do NOT drink the water.  In Mexico, it’s known as Montezuma’s Revenge, but Vietnam I guess it could be known as Ho Chi Minh’s Revenge … except that the little bastard won.  So let’s just call it Ngo Dinh Diem’s Revenge.  Look it up.

I fly into Saigon and once again the warning is delivered not only by my wife (born in Saigon), but her mother as well (born on the Mekong).  A line of well meaning Vietnamese relatives are lining up to tell me the same message: White man, do NOT drink the water.  Avoid even the damn ice cubes in the drinks offered unless you want to strap a shitter to your ass for the entire duration of your trip.  I lack the immunities in my stomach to break down the microbial organisms that live in the water which will make me sick.  These are the same immunities that naturally exist in the people that are born in these countries.

So what do I do?  I eat everything put in front of me.  Hog balls, chicken feet, and even the ants that wandered into our stir fry at the restaurant on the way to Da Lat.  People brought me pho, water, ice cubes, and even buckets of the Mekong River.  I drank it all, merrily ignoring the advice that was given to me by my in-laws.

What happened?

I was completely fine.  No vomiting, no pooping, no constipation.  Nothing.  No scatalogical defects of any kind.  In fact, my wife, my mother-in-law, AND my father-in-law all got sick from the food.  Is this not proof of my ironclad, terminator stomach?  I’m convinced I could grill an Ebola monkey without worry.

Yet there is one thing that destroys my invulnerability.  As sure as a magical key unlocking the floodgates of my bowels.  I am fearful to mention it in public, my weakness.  Afterall, the Green Lantern does not post on his website that the color Yellow will kill him.  Does Sarah Palin admit at the GOP convention her problems with literacy?  Hell no!

But … for the sake of honest writing, I’ll admit my fragility here.  The one thing that cracks my gamma-radiated intestines is …

Coconut Milk.

You may be asking yourself how often do you encounter coconut milk?  It’s not like I’m scurrying up palm trees in Hawaii everyday or hanging out with Curious George.  In truth though, you’d be surprised how often coconut milk shows up as an ingredient in food, particularly Asian food.  And its never an advertised ingredient, always a little secret treasure waiting to seep into my abdomen like poop poison.

Which brings me to the story of Still China.  At the edge of Stillwater around 1999, a Chinese restaurant opened and as most Chinese restaurants do, it possessed an “all you can eat buffet”.  For a poor college kid, it was a jackpot.  Add this into I was friends with two bodybuilders that were fond of Chinese food when they were carb loading.  These dudes could freaking eat.  You’ve never seen greedy eaters until two 200+ lb weightlifters are coming off of a Creatine cycle and banging carbs.  Needless to say, it was the destination of choice for the unabashed gorging and I happily participated.

At the time, I did not realize that my weakness was coconut milk, so I ate it copiously and freely.  Helping after helping.  Yes, I’ll have some more Moo Goo Gai Pan.  Mmm, I love me some General Zo’s Chicken.  Beef and Brocolli?  Certainly, good sir.  On that particularly day in my early twenties, before my metabolism died from an embolism, I wager that I had five helpings.  Five plates of deadly sauce, my nemesis – coconut milk.

My buddies dropped me off at the fraternity house.  That year I lived out of house.  It was homecoming and I had to put in my hours or face getting fined for non-participation.  Not that I minded in the least I assure you.  Homecoming meant that the house was crawling with sorority chicks … and that meant the possibility of a drunken hook-up … or at least a free party T-shirt.  Also, I am a bit of an artist so I didn’t have to pomp the float or house dec, instead I got to manage and paint the sign competition.  But when I walked into the door, a grumble reverberated through my colon.

Uh oh.

Something was wrong.  It was a deep rumbling and I knew immediately that there was a clock ticking until uncontrolled defecation.  Luckily, there are bathrooms on every floor.  I was not dumb enough to use the first floor toilet, where the girls would queue.  Instead, I went to the second floor, a men’s only toilet.  I made it in time and took a modest crap.  All physical indicators was that I was finished, so I wiped and stood up.

Boom!

Uh oh.  My o-ring had just released in a fecal blowout.  Houston, we have a problem.  Unexpected and terrifying.  I didn’t just have mud butt, I had shit cannoned the entire stall.  It was explosive decompression, like what you see in the space movies when someone’s air suit has a leak.  My heart raced like a scared rabbit.  Tentatively, I looked back and saw that the entire toilet was lacquered in laxative.  The smell was overwhelming.  My nervous eyes reluctantly looked down to the back of my legs.  It looked like I had just slide, feet first into second base during a rain storm.  My pants, my belt, hell even my socks had been caught in the mudslide.

Panic set in as I realized my circumstances.  I had just explosively shit all over myself and the house was crawling with hot girls.  I did not live there, I had no clothes.  I had no refuge, no Fortress of Solitude.

I. Was. Screwed.

Damn you, coconut milk!  Damn you straight to hell!  But in the worst situations, my normally video game, beer addled mind tightens into a steel trap.  Should we ever go to war with the Russians, I am convinced that I should be the man on the launch codes.  Should you ever need an emergency vasectomy with only a pen lid, I am your man.  Cool under pressure.

Step 1. The Evidence. I couldn’t do anything with my pants half off and covered in shit.  I immediately set about cleaning myself up.  I was frantic, frenetic, frenzied.

Step 2. The Crime Scene. I worked quickly, diligently, and efficiently.  I doubt that even CSI would have been able to find a shred of fecal matter in that stall as I wiped it with the roll of toilet paper.  No trace was left, in fact, considering it was a fraternity, I left it much cleaner than what I found.

Step 3. The Disguise. My clothes were soiled to put it nicely, but I could not walk out of the bathroom without them.  I had to somehow hide the fact that the back of my pants were poop stained.  I did what I could to wipe them down – no butt clods.  Then I pulled my shirt over them and leaned back so there was no rubbing on the infected areas.  It was not perfect, but it would have to do.

Step 4. The Cover Story. My house was 3 miles away from the fraternity, walking home was out of the question.  I went to one of my pledge brothers house and spontaneously said, “Hey … um … I’m gonna paint on the sign and … can I borrow some old shorts or something so I don’t ruin my pants?”  Genius.  Fucking genius.  It worked.

I immediately returned to the bathroom and changed.  Once in safe clothes, I went down to the basement and washed my original garments.  Disaster averted.  I even had the composure to try to mack on some hotties wandering around the house, but of course to no avail.

The one thing that I did learn from this harrowing experience, other than my insane adaptability to a seemingly no-win situation, was my weakness, my Achilles heel, the chink in my armor …

Coconut Milk.