A Study In Happiness

An office prank leads to unintentional revelations

Louis an intern for a very large and successful law firm.  Each day he toiled in the swirling minutia of the law.  The high paid lawyers swaggered like peacocks and pecked each other’s eyes out like rabid hens.  Today was going to be unusually harsh as the high priced lawyer he was assigned to, Wesley Patterson had just lost a big case.  The client was on the phone and the lawyer had not yet returned from wherever he was.

            “Sir, I wish you wouldn’t shout…Well I don’t think that was called for…”  Louis had become adapt at balancing a telephone on his shoulder and shifting through papers while typing with his elbow.  “Yes sir, I do think that the judge was unfair but there is little I can do about that now.  I do think that out firm did the best it could to represent you sir...”

            “Louis! Louis get in here!”  It was Patterson.  Louis promptly reported to Patterson’s office, front and center.

            “Sir, Mr. Wolf is on the phone, he’s pretty pissed,” He reported.

            “I don’t care,” Patterson said with a slight pout, “F*****g loser.  I want coffee, no I want an herbal tea, and I want my meditation tapes, the ones with the ocean noises and not the one with the stupid bird noises.  Take the f*****g bird noises and stick them up your f*****g a*s.”  However, Patterson pressed the blue tooth in his ear and began an imitation of new parents settling an angry infant.

            “Sir, uh shouldn’t you have your secretary Patty do that for you?” Louis said, “I’m already organizing the Hamamato report for Markenson.”

            “F**k you Louis I’m on break,” Patty said from her desk.  She turned the page of her magazine and snapped the gum in her mouth. 

            Patterson was already turned from him, cooing in front of the large glass window that framed the city and the curvature of the Earth.  Defeated, Louis went about accomplishing his task.  He figured that since he was already going to the lounge to get some tea he might as well get something for himself.  He didn’t notice that Phillip and Johnson were stalking him with impish glee.

            Their plan was ingenious in its simplicity, Patterson always wanted a hot beverage after a case, and none of the interns ever passed up free anything.  Phillips would wait until Louis had poured and finished preparing whatever it was he was planning on drinking.  Then he would create a diversion giving Johnson just enough time to slip a good quantity of prescription strength laxative into his drink. It was powerful and quick, but didn’t irritate the stomach like other laxatives (they weren’t totally heartless), but was designed for clearing out impacted colons through brute force. Then while the drug was taking affect they would run around the building locking as many bathroom doors as they could before Louis either crapped himself or out ran them and found one he could use.

            Louis got himself a Styrofoam cup and stuck it under the spout of the cocoa dispenser.  The machine whirred its magic song and little brown drops became a stream.

            Phillips took a seat at the round table in the middle of the room.  “Uh Louis, how about that Wolfe case huh?  Pretty crazy stuff eh?”

“Yeah.”  The cocoa machine sputtered and spat.

“Patterson’s taking it pretty hard huh.”

Louis turned around and stared a Phillips quizzically.  “Yeah.”

“Hoo boy, that guy can steam up eh?”  A plastic smile wrapped itself around his face.  It made Louis uneasy.

“What are you up to?” The cocoa machine stopped sputtering and he picked up the cup and placed it on the counter.

“What am I up to?” Phillips placed a look of false hurt on his face, “What do you mean?”

Three months I’ve been here and you and that prick Johnson haven’t said two words to me.  And I pretty sure it was you who put the toothpaste in the door handle of my car.”

“Louis, really.  How could you think that either me or Johnson could do something so sophomoric?”

Louis walked over to Phillips and put a finger in his face.  “Look, today is going to be very s****y,” Johnson snuck in behind him and began pouring the laxative into the cup on the counter, “So do yourself a favor and back off.  I’m in no mood.”  Louis turned around and bumped into Johnson who was furiously screwing the cap back onto a bottle.

“Hey Louis.” He said.

“I’m watching you two.” Louis said taking his first sip.  “Don’t mess with me today.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Phillips said.

            “A******s,” Louis said when they had gone.  He took a look into his drink to check for any possible sabotage, and after finding none chugged every last drop.  He disposed of his cup, prepared Patterson’s herbal tea and exited the lounge.  He made the left from the lounge.  Walked a few paces, the stopped, his head cocked slightly like a confused dog.  It was an interesting sensation at first, kinda bubbly, and then an increasing pressure on his sphincter changed it from interesting to frightening.  He doubled over after what felt two thumps to the stomach before ripping a wet one in front of Cheryl, the hot new receptionist, who politely, but swiftly trotted away.  The recoil from embarrassment caused him to suddenly stand up straight and blast himself in the face with very hot herbal tea.

            The resulting pain caused his face to contort into a grimace that looked like a circus freak.  His throat produced a sound like highschool girls meeting the face from a poster.  Now this was an intriguing set of sensations.  Scalding pain, mixed with insane panic, mixed with drastic discomfort.  He made like a burn victim to water towards the nearest bathroom only to be foiled by a simple mechanism of tumblers and springs.  He frantically wrestled with the handle screaming and yelling, one tea soaked hand pulling and turning while the other hand firmly grasped his cheeks and tired to pinch them closed.  Meanwhile at least twenty to thirty people watched dumfounded as the new doofy intern made a complete and total a*s of himself.  Some watched with open jaws and some watched with open smiles, but they all just watched.

            Deciding to give up on this bathroom, Louis sprinted to the next one, which was also locked.  “What the f**k!” He screamed in rage kicking the door.  He turned around and gazed back at thirty faces gazing back at him.  Realizing how he must look Louis composed himself as one man wrestling his rectum, covered in tea and only using one eye could and rapidly exited towards the elevators.

            He blindly pushed a button and pushed his rear against the inside of the elevator.  He was now soaked with sweat, it felt like a biblical swarm of eels was trying desperately to exit his person.  He began to concentrate on things that might help him take his mind off the intense, intense discomfort of having to defecate as bad he did.

            Mr. Levin, the man behind the firm entered the elevator.  Louis just stared at the floor and gripped the handrail hoping that his a*s muscles had enough power to hold back his load till he got to the next floor.

            “hm, you must be that young fellow working under Patterson.” Mr. Levin said.

            “Yes sir.”

            “I’ve been hearing good things about you son, keep up the good work,”

            His a*s was now throbbing and his legs were turning to jelly, but Louis kept his ground.  “Thank you sir.”

            “Are you alright son?”

            Louis answered that with a paint-stripping fart.  The kind of blast that your eyes water from twenty feet away.  Thankfully the elevator door opened allowing Louis to escape.  He ran down the hallway past cubicles leaving pockets of vapor behind him.  His stomach bubbled and gurgled forcing him to bend over once more, he was only ten feet away from the bathroom door, from salvation.  He suddenly realized a small but palpable wetness in the most nether of regions.  He didn’t have much time left.

            “Are you ok?” A wide-eyed temp asked.  A droplet of sweat fell off the tip of his nose as Louis’ face turned into a grimace of fierce determination.  Letting out a low bellow, Louis charged the bathroom and entered a stall.  He didn’t take the time to construct a shitter’s nest out of toilet paper, he just dropped and unloaded, stall door wide open to the world.

            Louis let forth his burden which shot forth like a greased gerbil from a tennis ball machine.  He gripped the bottom of the bowl and lifted his feet off the floor.  Toilet water splashed up against him and his face contorted to weird and ghastly shapes.  Then finally it was over.  And that’s when it happened:

            Relief, glorious, glorious relief.  Waves of it washing him down as his sat on the stained toilet seat.  For that brief moment just after his catastrophic release he reached a period of perfect Zen.  All of his cares and ambitions, all of his wants and needs, all of that humiliation that he would have to face when he left the bathroom, all melted away to nothing.  He had somehow reached a period of oneness that monks in far away lands studied and strived to achieve for years of their lives.  He didn’t realize it, or was he at the spiritual level to fully appreciate it but he was there and it was sweet.  For a brief second had become one with the universe

            He sat there, reveling in his bliss until the methane produced by the fecal matter below him reached his nose and snapped him back to reality.  Just in time to catch Johnson and Phillips running out of the bathroom with armfuls of toilet paper and giggling like school girls.  When he looked over to the dispenser in his stall he saw only one small square pathetically hanging off the roll.  After some thought he made due with his tie, pulled up his pants, adjusted himself, washed up in the sink, fixed his hair and marched out of the bathroom brandishing as much dignity as he could muster.

Author's Note

I wrote this back in 2003. Dusted it off and threw in a blue tooth reference. Leave a review if you love it or hate it.

Reviews

[Goat]

Hahaha! I can't seem to stop laughing, at this rate the same will happen to me as it did to Louis! Thank you so much, this just brightened my day. I love the descriptions in here, they made me cringe and laugh even harder! My only advice I have to give is that if you haven't already you should label this piece as mature, even though most people on here are adults. This was hilarious, I loved it! Nice job!