After I shit the bed with my dad in it in Hong Kong*, my bowels were never quite right and got progressively worse. My calamitous movements became legend. At one friend’s house, there was a sign in the bathroom. PEOPLE WHO CAN’T TAKE DUMPS HERE: CHRIS.

My guts were so rank, I remember my GOOD poops more than my bad ones. In 1996, I took a poop in a French youth hostel that I still think about like a lost love. That poop was transcendent. People who poop like that all the time… They have no idea how lucky they are.

Things came to a head, so to speak, when I went to university. (Hi, @UBishops!) I lived in a dorm, Mackinnon, that had two big bathrooms for, like, 40 kids. They were co-ed. Absolute nightmare. But my first day, I somehow got in and out without anyone else seeing me.

Unfortunately, the stench got out, too, and I’m not joking: It was like a fire drill. Dozens of kids ended up retching on the grass outside the building. I was like, OH GOD WHO SHIT along with everyone else. Meanwhile, all I could think was: Where am I going to poo for a year?

At 24, I was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s. Anyone with a bowel disorder will tell you: They have a secret network of secluded, relatively unused toilets they’ve scouted out all over town. Sort of like the Floo Network in Harry Potter, except it’s places where they shit.