- So I kind of position myself
to do it discreetly, you know.
And this hot squirt...
[laughter]
Shoots out of my butt,
and I'm like...
"Oh, no."
[laughter]
[dark electronic music]
♪
[wind howling and whistling]
♪
[cheers and applause]
- Hello, everybody.
Welcome to "This Is Not Happening."
I'm your host, Ari Shaffir, and today
all the stories are about nostalgia.
[cheers and applause]
A very, very funny man.
Give it up for Mr. Randall Park, everybody.
[cheers and applause]
- Are you guys ready for a shit story?
[laughter] - Yeah!
- All right.
So I have a very sensitive stomach.
I'd say about half my shits are diarrheas.
And it's not just, like, when I eat something bad.
It's also when I, like, experience anxiety
or, like, trauma.
And I'd say the most traumatic period of my life
was in middle school.
I went to this school called Palms Middle School.
And I was this chubby, shy,
awkward little Asian kid.
And I--the school--
everyone else in the school was a bully.
You know, I got-- I got bullied.
I got beat up occasionally.
Every time I'd go to my locker,
stuff would be missing.
I mean, when I think back to my years
at Palms Middle School,
I just picture a bunch of kids just pointing at me
and laughing at me.
It was a nightmare, right?
But eventually I graduated, and I ended up going
to a high school, and I just felt a lot better.
I grew up. I felt more confident.
I made friends.
And one day in high school, one of my friends came up to me
and was like, "Hey, do you want to catch a talent show
"that my little sister's in?
It's at Palms."
And I-I could feel my body, like, tensing up.
But then I felt better, and I was like,
"Oh, you know what?
"Yeah, you know, I'm grown now.
"That--that's past me.
"I'm confident now. You know what?
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be there.
I'll see you there."
So that Saturday comes.
I'm riding my bike to my old middle school.
I lock up my bike, and the moment I set foot
on the campus, I could feel my stomach start to turn.
[light laughter]
But I pay it no mind.
I go into the auditorium, right.
The auditorium is packed.
There's just parents, kids running around, faculty.
It's just packed. I see my friends
sitting in the front row,
and they saved me a seat.
I join them, and the talent show begins.
And as soon as I sit down,
I feel like I need to use the restroom.
My stomach is, like, about to explode, all right?
But I just got there, so I decide to fight it through.
About a half hour into the show,
I am literally, like, in the fetal position.
I'm, like, shaking,
and sweat is pouring down my face.
I'm not even looking at the stage.
And my stomach is killing me.
I really have to use the restroom,
and I think, "You know what?"
"I'm gonna--I got to relieve this pressure.
"I'm gonna try to release some gas.
I'm just gonna try to finesse some gas discreetly out of me."
So I kind of position myself
to do it discreetly, you know.
And this hot squirt...
[laughter]
Shoots out of my butt,
and I'm like...
"Oh, no."
[laughter]
And I feel this cold circle
forming in the back of my pants.
[laughter]
And I go up to my friends, and I'm like,
"Look, guys, I'll be back."
And I, like, quickstep out of the auditorium,
and I burst out of the auditorium
into the lobby, and I'm frantically looking
for the boys' restroom.
And I see the boys' restroom,
and I kick open the door, and I'm in the restroom.
Now, the restroom at Palms
is similar to the restroom
at a bunch of underfunded middle schools
all across the country.
There are two stalls.
One of them has the door completely ripped off.
[laughter]
The other one, I go in there.
The toilet is filled with paper towels
and someone else's shit.
[laughter]
And I try to flush it. It just won't go down.
So, you know, I have-- I have a problem here.
Which--it's a philosophical question, really.
Which one do you choose?
Do you choose the one without the door
or the one with-- that's filled with shit?
And at this point, I'm, like-- I'm about to explode.
So I-I have no choice.
I close the door, I pull down my pants.
Now, you know you have to take a shit
when you're willing to shit on top of someone else's shit.
[laughter]
So I, like, go into the stall,
and I'm, like, hovering over the--the toilet,
and I just let it loose.
And it's like-- it's not like a sh--
it's like a dam burst, right?
It just--for, I mean, a good 20 seconds,
it's like...
[imitates whooshing]
Just shooting out of me.
It's like an exorcism, right?
And I--it's weird, because it's like this spiritual--
it was this spiritual situation going on.
My eyes were closed,
and I felt like these demons
were, like, shooting out of my body.
Like all of those experiences from middle school,
the kids beating me up,
and the kids, you know,
stealing my stuff from my locker,
and--and all the kids
pointing at me and laughing at me,
it was just shooting out of me.
It was the most cathartic shit
I had ever taken in my life.
[laughter]
[laughs] Right?
And it keeps going, and then it just stops.
And I open my eyes,
and I feel so good.
I feel like a new man.
I feel, like, completely reborn, right?
And then I look down at my shoes.
[laughter and groans]
And I see this brown pool
start forming around my feet.
And then I look down into my pants.
It is filled to the brim
with shit.
[laughter]
I look back at the toilet,
covered in shit...
[chuckles]
My shit and the next dude's shit,
the dude before me.
The wall, splatters everywhere.
I'm like, "Oh, my God. Oh, no."
And I see this renegade, like, stream
start moving out from under the stall.
And just on instinct, I start squeegeeing it back in
with the side of my shoe,
and I'm like, "Oh, no.
Oh, no, what do I do?"
I start pulling out the toilet paper,
and I start, like-- like a sinking rowboat,
I start, like, just, like, scooping it out of my pants.
And I'm like, "Oh, no. I need more.
I-I need paper towels. I need paper towels."
So I pull up my pants, and they're heavy and cold.
[laughter and groans]
And I, like, Charlie Chaplin it
over to the paper towels,
and I start yanking out paper towels,
yanking 'em out.
And then I hear the audience applause.
And I'm like,
"Oh, no,
"It's intermission.
"It's the time in the show when people go
to use the bathroom."
And I look out into the bathroom.
There's, like, shit footprints all over the floor,
streaks of shit going underneath into the stall.
I look at the sink.
Just shit droppings everywhere.
The paper towel dispenser just dripping with feces.
It's--it's a crime scene.
[laughter]
And I hear the audience walking into the lobby,
and I'm like, "Oh"-- at this point, I'm an animal.
I'm just, like, acting purely on instinct.
And I run into the stall, and I just close it,
and I just stand there...
[laughter]
Just waiting for this onslaught of people...
[laughs]
To be met with the surprise of their life.
[laughter]
My feet clearly visible under the stall,
but I'm like, "Okay, just-- just relax.
"Relax. Calm down.
Calm down."
And I hear the door open,
and I literally hear a grown man gasp.
[gasps] "Ahh!"
And then I hear the door close,
and I'm like, "Oh, fuck, fuck."
[murmurs indistinctly]
[laughter]
[mouthing words]
[laughter]
And I hear the door open again,
a teenage boy literally screaming,
"Ah!"
And the door closes, and I'm like, "Oh, God.
Oh, God."
[laughter]
The door opens again.
I hear a father and son walk in a few steps,
and I hear the son say, "Daddy, what happened in here?"
And the father, I hear him go, "Let's go, come on.
Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"
And then the door closes.
[laughter]
This happens over and over
and over and over again,
and I just want to die.
[laughter]
At one point, I hear the door open,
and I hear a bunch of boys
busting out laughing.
And I hear the voice of another boy say,
"I told you.
"I told you. You thought I was lying.
I told you!"
At this point, I had become a part of the talent show.
[laughter]
My talent?
Shitting everywhere.
[laughter]
The one bright spot was when the door opened,
and I hear these feet walk in gently
and this kind man's voice say,
"Is everything okay in there?"
[laughter]
And my plan was to not exist, to not say anything,
to just... [laughs]
Just be quiet, but it just came out of me,
and I said, "I'm okay."
[laughter]
And then the door closed.
[laughter]
Now, eventually, it got to the point
where the door stopped opening
and I didn't hear the audience in the lobby,
and I was like, "Oh, okay.
"They must be back in the show.
"You know, the second half must have begun.
Now's my time to get the hell out of here."
So I open the stall,
open the bathroom door.
I run out through the lobby, out of the auditorium,
and I see my bike,
and I beeline to my bike with my head down.
I'm not looking up.
I'm just going straight to my bike.
And from the corner of my eye,
I see a group of kids
pointing at me
and laughing at me.
And they're like, "That's him. That's him.
"That's the shit guy.
That's him."
And I realize I cannot run
from the trauma of my middle school years.
It is always gonna be with me.
And I get to my bike.
I unlock the bike, I jump on it,
and I pedal home as fast as I could,
and I never went back to that middle school again.
[laughter] - Yeah.
- That's it. Thanks.
[cheers and applause]