Responsibility (I shit my pants) 2008

Responsibility was taught to us in many ways growing up. Outside of Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman, one of the most memorable ways I learnt about responsibility was when I received a key to our house. She said that I was to use it when I came home from school, in case she was out running the other kids out to various after school activities. I must have lost that key a thousand times. There are so many keys to this house floating around the streets of Newcastle it would be like if DJ Khaled shared his Snapchat password with the world.

For years, our culture wrote movies and created art that said trusting what you feel is more important than your responsibility to others. And now we wonder why men won’t take responsibility for their actions. The thing about being responsible is that it involves others, and it involves community. If you’ve spent your whole life believing that what you feel and your individual identity are more important than the collective group you belong to, responsibility can feel claustrophobic.

Responsibility was a big thing in my family. “As the oldest child, you have a responsibility to this family. You have to look after your siblings and make sure you do your part around the house.”

My parents also lived into this family sense of responsibility. For Mum, it was responding to the call of the “ideal mother”. Staying home and looking after her kids, rather than going back to work and pursuing a career. Dad lived into his role as the family provider, the Dad who always went to work. I learned several key lessons growing up that taught me about responsibility, but here is the funniest one.

It was the end of a school day in 2008, and I was racing for the bus. I was running for the bus because it always left annoyingly early. Obama’s election couldn’t change everything, I guess. I was also racing for the bus because it was my only chance for a bit of face time with my crush, Beyonce. That name sounds fake, but I assure you it isn’t. She lived a couple streets away, and we were crazy in love - well, at least I was. I was running for the bus when I was suddenly hit with both a feeling and a choice. The feeling was that I really needed to take a shit. The pizza rounda I had that day had hit a real nerve, so now I was faced with a choice, do I take a shit now and miss out on my chance to hang with Beyonce, or do I hold it and wait till I get home. The idea of using a public high school bathroom at the end of a day sounded incredibly unappealing to me, so I decided to hold it.

When I got on the bus, it was already pretty full. Still, by some incredible stroke of luck, I can only attribute to the presence of a loving, kind God - the seat next to Beyonce was free. As I sat down next to her, my stomach gurgled, but luckily over the rowdy afterschool sounds of the 715, it was rendered mute. Beyonce was a pro athlete, so she was incredibly fit and spent most of the weekend, after school and even during school, playing in tournaments or training. I felt like I understood what that was like. I was by no means playing any kind of professional sport, but growing up with Sri Lankan parents, I understood what the pressure to succeed felt like. I really liked Beyonce. I remember seeing her in our neighbourhood and being like, who is that? A year later, I found out that we were both going to the same high school, and immediately it felt like we were destined to be together. We weren’t. Just a few short months after this conversation, I would go to ask Beyonce out - the first girl I’d ever asked out in my entire life and watch her awkwardly blurt out “No!” after I weirdly ambushed her outside our art class. It would be a good year and a half before our relationship recovered and we were able to just be friends.

I don’t really remember much of the conversation that happened on the way home that day. Largely because most of my focus was on trying really hard not to shit my pants the entire time. About 15 minutes into the 35-minute trip, I realised that sitting next to the most attractive girl I knew at the time, with a belly full of explosive shit, was a horrendous idea. But I tried to listen to her and be funny while also masking this piping hot dragon that was birthed inside me.

When we got off the bus, I realised that the shit was coming in hot and quickly. I started walking with the regular crew, who also got off at this stop because I wanted to appear calm and collected, but after a minute or two, I realised that I was just straight up waddling. I made up some excuse about going to a piano lesson and said I had to run ahead. And with a clenched butthole, I sprinted away, leaving Beyonce to be wooed by the other guys that also have a crush on her in our street. So I take off...that’s a strong word - I was a chubby little brown kid who needed to take a shit. I waddled off as cool and as sexy as I could, just in case Beyonce was watching me.

I’m racing, my palms are sweaty, my knees weak, Mum’s spaghetti. I race up to our front door and bang on the door. There is no answer. I’ve got my key in my bag, but there is simply no time; I need to get to a bowl ASAP. I don’t have a choice. I’m banging on the door when I hear Mum from inside say - “Where is your key?”. Here’s the thing about responsibility, you don’t realise how important it is until the shit hits the pants. Frustrated that she’s chosen now, of all times to teach me a lesson, I quickly throw my bag to the floor and go to the pocket where I keep my key. It is not there. The key is simply not there. At this point, the shit in my pants is crowning. I start rustling through my bag furiously, looking for my key, throwing my books everywhere. I can’t find it, I’ve left it inside.

I start banging desperately on the door, crying for my mother to rescue me. I’ll later find out that at this point, she thinks I’m being “rude and spoiled”, so she decided that she’ll teach me a lesson and take her time in opening the door. At one point, even my sister comes to the door, but my mother tells her not to open it. Tears are streaming down my face as I scream for my mother to open the door. I gave birth to a ten-pound, 9-inch poop baby just a few seconds before my mother finally decided to open the door. Before she opened the door, she was ready to spray me with a lecture, but as she opened the door, she found me standing there with my books strewn across the ground crying and between muffled gasps, I whispered - “I just did a big mud pie in my pants”. As I’m standing there in my own filth, I hear Beyonce behind me - “Have a good piano lesson Rowan! Hi Mrs Thambar!”.

I was 14 years old at the time.