About a month ago, I found myself in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, visiting my boyfriend’s grandparents on their dairy farm. On our last night there, they decided to take us into town for dinner (the town, by the way, consisted of a pizza place, a church and a general store ‘ and was about 25 minutes away).

I immediately went to use the bathroom the second we got to the pizza place. Since I have made it a personal rule never to No. 2 in the house of any relative of my boyfriend, I have gotten quite familiar with public restrooms in restaurants, malls, grocery stores, etc.

Of course, as my luck would have it, when I walked into the women’s bathroom, the water in the toilet was on the brink of overflowing. I had no choice but to sneak into the men’s room (which I did without anyone spotting me ‘ yes!), only to find out that it had the same problem.

I walked, defeated, back to my boyfriend and his family. We were seated, and I was forced to stare at a menu of food which brought to mind turds of different shapes and colors. I ended up ordering a Caesar salad, because of course when you’re filled with your own crap, lettuce drizzled in cream and cheese is a bright choice.

A couple of bites into the meal, I began to feel like the entire Hun army was marching through my lower intestine. Much to my embarrassment, my stomach began to growl over my boyfriend’s family’s traditional political debate over whether the O’Reily Factor is in fact fair and balanced.

When everyone was done eating and we got into the car, I was hit with the most comically painful bout of the runs. For the 25 minutes it took to get home, I was afraid to laugh, sneeze, talk or smile, lest I pee out of my ass. I was also very much conflicted about telling my boyfriend of my painful and humiliating situation, since I had convinced him a while ago that girls in general do not fart or poop ‘ ever.

When we got to his grandparents’ house and I suspiciously ran up the stairs much to the confusion of the family, and much to my horror, I discovered that their toilet had the same problem as the ones in the pizza place. Gotta love that country plumbing.

I then decided that the only thing left to do was to tell my boyfriend that I, and girls in general, like all other species of earth, have to pop a squat every now and then. After he laughed at me for what felt like an eternity and told me he would bring this up whenever I gave him a hard time, he grabbed the car keys and we searched for a store that might be open, or a ditch on the side of the road.

Now it’s comforting to know that the secret’s out with my boyfriend. I am human and sometimes I poop ‘ only sometimes ‘ very infrequently ‘ once or twice a year maybe.

‘ Micol Zweig is a junior English major.