No. 123 "Party Pooper."

When I was twenty, I lived in my first house. Well, it wasn't a house as much as it was a Soviet-era duplex being shared with friendly, albeit scary drug dealers. Nonetheless, I was now out of the dorms and able to throw P. Diddy-style parties without pesky RA's breaking it up before the women got drunk.

I lived in my domicile with three friends who also enjoyed the concept of partying, but did not like the mess that drunk, often manner-less people left after the party had come to a close. Since I was the self-proclaimed "party master," it was my bathroom that would be used by the hundred or so patrons who made their way to our humble abode for a cocktails and loose women.

Each bedroom had its own bathroom, so whenever people needed to use the toilet, they had to go through my room to make it to the pisser. This made it difficult to court inebriated women to my sanctuary for private all-night make out sessions. At first, it didn't seem like that bad of an idea. I figured people would know that it was my room, and respect my property.

I was incorrect.

After either the third or fourth social get-together, I woke up to alleviate myself after another successful, albeit hazy party. While pissing and unsuccessfully aiming for the toilet, I saw that my shaving gel had been misplaced. Then, I noticed that someone had used the shaving cream to write various gang symbols all over my door. I did not recall inviting any known gang members to my pajama party. Nor did I believe that youth toughs would use shaving gel to promote their gang on my bathroom door. This was the work of drunk morons. The predominant demographic that attended my social gatherings.

Although I was a bit pissed, it only took a couple minutes to clean off the creamy graffiti scattered throughout my bathroom. I was actually more upset about my now-empty bottle of shaving gel, realizing how my scruffy look was beginning to take a turn for "homeless."

Utilizing my apt detective skills, I questioned my roommates about the vandalized door. They were unhelpful in my investigation, and were more concerned about my lack of pants. I came to the realization that whoever disgraced my bathroom would never be caught, but came up with a plan to guarantee this did not happen again.

Using my porn machine computer, I created a sign for which I would display several rules of the bathroom. The list was simple and to the point, just clarifying what guests could and could not do while in my bathroom. It went something like this:

My Bathroom Is For:
-Pissing
-Shitting

My Bathroom Is Not For:
-Graffiti parties
-Railing lines of coke
-Sexual Intercourse
-Vomiting violently
-Eating ham sandwiches

I proudly displayed the sign, and even thought about laminating it so I could bring it with me to my next home and eventually have it displayed in the Awesome Signs Hall of Fame after I die. The next few parties went off without a hitch. People saw the sign and knew I meant business. Thus, there were no more problems in my bathroom, and I didn't have to mop up a collage of barf, drugs and glitter the next morning.

Unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending. I would have loved if I could have carried on through the next semester without any restroom dilemmas. But, God hates me.

Once the fall semester came to a close, I went back home to Scottsdale in order to spend time with my family and sober up for a couple weeks while eating meals not created via microwave. When I left, I locked my bedroom door, fearing that burglars may break into the house in order to steal my collection of ironic t-shirts and faux-vintage blue jeans.

While away, I received a drunken call from my friend Jose. He had heard there was a topless photo of one of our mutual friends (who will remain nameless) on my computer, and just had to see it. Originally, I notified him of the existence of the Internet, where there were literally dozens of photos of naked women waiting for him to salivate over. He was unrelenting, as he needed to see this stupid picture.

I told him that my room was locked and I had the only key with me down in Scottsdale. He somehow convinced me that he was a skilled locksmith and could get into my room without creating any damage to my door frame. Since he was Mexican, I figured he had done this a time or two before and agreed, as long as he didn't break anything and promised to never call me again.

Winter break came and went, and I was ready for another fun-filled semester up in Flagstaff. Once I arrived back to my loving home, I instantly caught a whiff of a disgusting smell lurking near my bedroom. I had forgotten about the whole "Jose incident" since it was about three weeks beforehand.

Then I saw it.

I walked into my room and surveyed a sea of toilet paper, water and liquid shit seeping through the bathroom door and into my room (which was carpeted.) Apparently, Jose had decided to use my lavatory to take a shit of epic proportions after consuming rank Indian food. Since the shit exceeded what any human should have coming out of their body, my toilet did not comply and overflowed. Instead of grabbing a plunger and cleaning up his fecal-filled mess, Jose decided it would be better to close the door, re-lock my room and let the liquid shit monster in my room ferment for three weeks. Either that, or he was drunk and forgot about it. But, it felt planned.

So there I was. Standing next to what looked to be a knocked over Port-a-Potty laying in my room, stinking up all kinds of stink. I didn't even know where to start, as I was very inexperienced when it came to three week-old shit-cleaning procedures. I thought about taking all of my belongings and switching rooms with one of my other roommates, then putting all of their stuff in the "poop room." When questioned about the sudden room change, I would pretend that I had no idea what they were talking about and mention that they should probably clean up the smelly mess coming from "their room." Looking back, I wished I had gone through with that plan.

Finally, I accepted my fate and began the BP-style clean up. I went to the store to purchase an economy-sized pack of paper towels, an arsenal of cleaning products and a silo of Febreze. I had to give this shit monster all I had, and wasn't going down without a fight. By the time I got back to my house, the rest of my roommates had arrived and took turns heckling me for my abortion of a room. I had to clean this up, pronto.

After several hours of scrubbing, spraying and wiping I had only finished about half the job. It seemed never ending and I strongly considered calling Health and Human Services to have them finish the job while I watched Boy Meets World reruns. This was not to be. Exhausted, I went to bed, only to be tormented by the smell so greatly that I had to sleep on the nasty couch in the living room we bought for ten dollars at The Salvation Army. It may have been stained with hobo jizz, but at least I could get some shut eye.

The next day, I skipped school like I normally would on a Monday and spent the entire day cleaning up the mess. From time to time, my roommates would pop in to mock me endlessly, and offer some desultory advice while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing. These ranged from "I knew you were good on your knees," to "You missed a spot." I contemplated murdering all of my roommates while they slept, but changed my mind when they all made me dinner later that night.

By the third day, I had finally finished the job. To some degree. My carpet was still wet with nasty poo-water, but the rest of the mess was gone. I somehow came into possession of an industrial fan (after stealing it from a store in the middle of the night). I planned to use the fan to blow out all the nasty smells circulating in my bedroom, and to help dry up the moisture deep in my carpet. This made it impossible to sleep in my own room since the fan sounded like a 747 and routinely frightened my roommates' dogs.

The smell lasted another few weeks, and when my supply of Febreze ran dry, I decided to use AXE body spray to camouflage the stench. I also borrowed a couple scented candles from my roommate to disperse throughout my room. This created a potent aroma of flowers, cologne and fart. But, at least it was getting better.

One night, when coming back from a debauchery and distilled spirits-filled evening, I stumbled into my room to get a good night's sleep. While clumsily taking off my pants, I tripped and hit my head on one of the many glass candles laying across my floor. I was knocked out cold. The next morning, I woke up to one of my roommates looking quite perplexed at the sight of myself laying on the floor, covered in wax with my pants at my knees. Surprisingly, they had seen me in worse situations after a drunken night.

For a moment, I wondered what it would be like if that blunt force trauma caused by the candle killed me on impact and I died in the aforementioned position. I thought of how embarrassing it would be for my mom to explain to friends and family how I passed away. "Well, he got too drunk to take his pants off and hit his head on a girly candle while laying just inches away from a plethora of human excrement." There really isn't a good way to explain the situation.

Over the next month, through various cleaning methods I was able to eradicate the smell and overall mess that had permeated in my room for the last few weeks. It was a huge, smelly monkey off my back. There was still a large brown stain next to my bathroom, but I would just tell people that I had dropped a bowl of delicious chocolate pudding on the floor. Sometimes its better to lie in certain situations.

The remainder of the semester continued without incident, and I was able to reclaim my "party master" position in the community soon after the clean up had come to a close. I could now go back to throwing carousals without various guests having to step over a river of shit in order to use my restroom. But, summer was well on its way and it was time to move out of our detestable domicile for good.

Needless to say, I didn't get my security deposit back.