I know it’s the second doodoo-related post I’ve written in less than a week, but there is an important issue that I think needs to be addressed: Bowel Movement Back Splash.

Bowel Movement Back Splash, or “BoMBS,” occurs when your poop kernel falls into the toilet in a way that causes the water to splash up to your butt. It’s heinous and disgusting, and no one should ever have to go through life knowing what it feels like.

Sadly, I am not so lucky and have experienced BoMBS before. And those instances were so traumatizing that I’ve actually spent time trying to figure out ways to protect myself from receiving a doodoo water enema. I’ve tried varying my fiber intake, sitting and slouching on the toilet seat, pooping at an angle–I’ve basically gone through every possible solution except crapping into my own hands.

I don’t know what my poop’s problem is! Why can’t it just fall out gracefully? Why must it turn a simple dump into an Olympic event?

So unfair…

I was on my way home after taking Walnut to see the veterinarian for her regular checkup. Unlike Pepper and Turnip–who both hate car rides and will try scratching my eyeballs out in order to avoid a commute–Walnut actually enjoys being in cars. She likes looking out the windows. and she will spend the entire ride staring at other moving cars and people. Because she doesn’t run around while I’m driving, I usually take her out of her carrier and let her sit in the backseat.

As I was driving from the vet’s office, I felt a fart coming on. Let’s be clear: if this had happened while I was in someone else’s car, I would keep the gas to myself and wait until I got far, far away before releasing it into the atmosphere. But since I was in my own car, I didn’t have to wait for a more appropriate time to fart…because when you’re in your own car, any time is an appropriate time.

So I let my butt exhale.

I didn’t think much of it afterwards; I simply assumed the fart would just escape out of the car, as all the other farts before it had done in the past. Those must have been magical farts because even when my windows were up and the AC was set to air recirculation, they still managed to get out before any odor reached my nose.

But the fart that came out on that particular day was different. It lingered in the air longer than usual, and smelled fouler than I’d expected. I realized then that I was not dealing with a typical fart.

Farts can be divided into 3 categories: Typical, Warning, and Ass Abomination.

As you can see from my super scientific-looking diagram, the fart categories coincide with certain types of dump. A Typical Fart is one that does not precede a dump, i.e., the gas isn’t being expelled to make room for a forming turd. As such, these farts don’t smell too bad, and you can actually get away with letting one of these out without anyone ever noticing.

A Warning Fart lets you know that you have a doodoo trip coming up in the near future. Its level of potency depends on what type of dump you’re going to have. A normal dump’s Warning Fart is the least smelly, while an Ass Abomination Fart smells like you just crapped your pants–and chances are you probably did, hence the hazardous waste icon.

So the closer your turd type is to being an explosive dump, the stankier your Warning Fart becomes. In my case, my fart seemed to be indicating that peanut butter poop was on the way.

“I thought girls don’t take dumps.” Sorry, but the only girls that don’t are the inflatable ones.

And now the obvious question: Why would I expel a fart that was warning me of peanut butter poop when I was sitting in a car with my windows up and the air recirculation on?

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how potent my gas was going to be because I had no idea there was anything in my bowels until I smelled the evidence. I didn’t have any grumblings or gurglings, pangs of stomach pain, or any of the other symptoms normally associated with a doot. I’m not sure why my bowels decided to forgo giving me the heads-up, but I think it may be attributed to the fact that I was sitting down at the time–like how you sometimes don’t realize you’ve overeaten until you stand up. Maybe poop works the same way.

Whatever it was that kept the turd alerts at bay, I ended up thinking I was releasing a Typical Fart when what actually escaped was a fetid Warning Fart that slowly permeated throughout the car.

Before long, my car was filled with an odor that I can only describe as being the stuff nightmares are made of.

I’m pretty sure this was how Freddy Krueger really lost his face…

Having turned my car into a traveling gas chamber, and there being no signs of the fart dissipating any time soon, it would have been a good time for me to open up a window or turn off the air recirculation setting…or anything else that would’ve gotten fresh air into the car.

But I just sat there–in fact, I actually made the conscious decision not resort to such measures under any circumstances. As much as I hated being enveloped in a toxic heat mist of my own making, if I cracked open a window I’d be admitting defeat. I’d become “Sylvia, the girl who got her ass kicked by her own ass gas–i.e., the most uncool person on Earth.”

No! No! No! I could not let that happen. Bad enough my awesomeness only exists in my own mind, but if I kowtowed to my fart even I wouldn’t be able to look at myself as anything other than a pathetic loser!

I refused to give in, and tried to play the car fart down.

Walnut, however, was not following my lead. She instead became agitated and started jumping all around the car. Her behavior probably would have been distracting, except I too busy being distracted by my internal monologue: Was Walnut’s sudden behavior change the result of my fart? Because that would be really emba–! Wait, we’re talking about Walnut, right? She’s the one who follows me into the bathroom and sits on my lap even when I’ve got A-bomb diarrhea. If she can withstand those odors, then she can’t possibly be getting mad about a trapped car fart now. Oh, I know! She’s upset about going to the vet!

It all made sense: Walnut was traumatized by her checkup experience, yet kept her feelings to herself because she was afraid I’d think less of her. But when I farted, she realized she could be as comfortable around me as I was around her. Her crazy act wasn’t to get back at me for damaging her lungs! It was her way of expressing her true feelings!

Look how sincere I was! How concerned I was for her well-being! Walnut was in dire need of emotional support, and I wanted to reassure her that my car was her safe haven!

And how did she repay me for my charitable efforts? She started wailing like an ungrateful banshee!

I wasn’t going to put up with that! I just spent $ 90 on ensuring Walnut’s health, and a couple of hours chauffeuring her to and from the vet. She was in no position to be complaining about a fart that just happened to be really stinky, and was now making my eyes burn.

I don’t know if she was going through a rebellious phase or what, but she started biting my arms!

Her little knife teeth hurt like a b*tch, but I wasn’t going to give in. It wasn’t until she jumped off my lap and got near the brake pedal that I decided to raise my white flag.

I know! I know! I lost the last shred of dignity that still remained! I wanted to be strong, but then I started picturing how things could end up playing out if I continued to refuse Walnut’s demands for fresh air. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been if I crashed. The impact would ignite my fart and burn me into a disgusting crisp. And what if I died? You know what happens to your bowels when you die! They release their contents! That means mine would be oozing peanut butter poop! I wouldn’t just be “Sylvia, the girl who got her ass kicked by her own ass gas;” I’d now be known as “Sylvia, the girl who got her ass charred by her own ass gas, and then bled peanut butter poop all over the freeway.”

I guess tomorrow night is the finale of the nature series “Life.” According to the “Discovery Channel” website, Sunday’s episodes will be about plants and primates. I’ve been TiVo’ing all the episodes from previous weeks, but I haven’t been able to watch an entire one yet. I’m like this will all wildlife shows: I tune in with extreme interest, but will end up only watching bits and pieces of the show because I’m fraught with paranoia–paranoia that I’ll suddenly find myself witnesses the “Circle of Life” at work, but without any cool costumes or music.

If that sounds too crazy to comprehend, here’s what I mean in picture form:

So you’re watching a show about wild animals in Africa, and the segment opens up with something pleasant…

You see the elephant, you hear the narrator, and you naturally expect the following clips to be of this baby elephant hanging out with his family.

Instead, the show’s producers suddenly turn around and crap on your face!

And then they make fun of your mother!

And then they tell you that you’ve just contracted Hepatitis A because it was in the crap they dumped on your face!

It get it: the purpose of a wildlife show is to focus on how animals interact with each other in their natural habitats, and some interactions will inevitably end badly. After all, it’s a Circle of Life that moves us all through despair and hope–I’ve seen “The Lion King;” I know how it works. But even though I’m aware of this, I still can’t stand watching lost baby elephants, or seeing wildebeests get washed away while trying to cross a river. It’s so depressing that I usually end up screaming at my television. It’s like I turn into that person who makes comments during scary movies or television game shows, except I’m all “Oh no he di’in’t just buy a vowel!” when I see a baboon trying to clobber a cheetah cub.

The “Life” series got raving reviews though, so I thought I’d give it a chance. But I wasn’t going to walk in blindly. I decided to avoid the episodes I believed were most likely to contain heart-wrenching scenes. The only one that fit the criteria was the show about mammals because you know that episode was going to include a polar bear somewhere. And polar bears make people cry. You’ve seen that commercial asking for donations to save polar bears; you know what I mean.

I thought, “Great! I am just denying myself one episode. I can watch the other ones!” So I started out with the episode about birds because I couldn’t imagine myself feeling sympathetic for them. Come on now, I eat chicken.

I watched the episode with the confidence only balls of titanium could bring, and then saw this horrific segment about a tropicbird and a frigatebird. I tried to illustrate it for you, but I can’t draw birds to save my life so I instead drew chicken nuggets with wings…

Note: I may have made up some of the narration stuff.

The birds episode turned out to be a bad decision, but I was okay with that. One of last Sunday’s episodes was about bugs, and I’d been looking forward to it for weeks because I hate bugs, and don’t care if they get harassed or separated from their families. If there was an episode I could definitely watch all the way through, it was that one.

I’m still wondering why that bear was in the bugs episode! It’s a mammal! It should have been in the episode about mammals!

I seem to strike out with any show that involves living wildlife, so I think I’ll just stick to watching the “Life” episode about plants. I’m hoping it’s going to be boring as hell, but knowing my luck I bet there’s going to be a scene where a shrew impales itself on a cactus or something.

Turnip had a herpes outbreak recently…but before you jump to conclusions and start writing him off as some sort of skanky pussy, a herpes infection in cats is quite different than an infection in humans. An outbreak in a cat results in sneezing, a running nose, watery eyes–i.e., he basically has a cold.

Lucky for them, huh? Their version of herpes doesn’t involve fire piss and starring in cheesy “Valtrex” commercials.

The vet prescribed some antibiotics and gave me a plastic syringe to use when giving Turnip his doses.

It’s pretty obvious how this was supposed to work. I just had to suck up a dose of medicine into the syringe and squirt it into Turnip’s mouth. And since cats are physically incapable of spitting things out, giving Turnip his meds was going to be easy. As long as I could get it into his mouth, he’d automatically end up swallowing it down.

Unfortunately, Turnip was not having any of that. While he doesn’t struggle when you cut his nails, or become grumpy if you wake him up from his naps just because you didn’t have anything better to do, that doesn’t mean he won’t get mad. Too bad I didn’t figure this out until after I tried to give him his first dose.

He had made it very clear that there was no way I was going to get any medicine near him without getting maimed.

Fine, Turnip; I thought giving you your medicine face-to-face was the respectful thing to do, but I see you don’t really appreciate my attempts at civility. And now you’ve left me with no choice: you’re getting some tough love, stealthy style!

In formulating my tough-love-stealthy-style strategies, I took a cue from “Assassin’s Creed,” which I began playing ever since I finished the bar exam. I burned through “Assassin’s Creed I” and “Bloodlines,” and started “Assassin’s Creed II” last week. I’m really enjoying the second game–although, I have to admit I like the first one better (and I am apparently the only person in the world who feels this way).

Anyway, in the “Assassin’s Creed” games, you get to stealth kill unsuspecting people using a retractable blade hidden under your sleeve. And since I, too, needed to be stealthy, I came up with my own version of the hidden blade: the Hidden Syringe!

Seriously, my awesomeness knows no bounds!

Once I had my cool assassination medication attire and hidden syringe ready to go, all that was left was to wait for Turnip to make himself vulnerable–i.e., open his mouth. Hmm…let’s see…he opens his mouth when he’s eating, drinking water, meowing for a snack, and–ah, yes–when he is yawning.

Perfect. I was going to make my move when Turnip yawned! And with the hidden syringe, I could give him his medicine before he even had time to realize what was going on!

I put my plan into action. Like any good assassin, I staked out my target and waited patiently for the moment of opportunity…

And then I struck!

And then I realized video game concepts do not translate well into real life!

The “Assassin’s Creed” plan didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, so I went back to getting maimed.

And then I noticed something. A cat’s mouth looks somewhat like this:

Most of us don’t have teeth running all the way to the back of our gums (if you do, then you and your freak wisdom teeth must live in Japan or the U.K.) and, thankfully, neither do cats. Knowing this, I came up with a third and final plan: I was going to squirt the medicine into the small gap at the back of Turnip’s teeth.

I put my new plan into action:

He struggled and tried to escape, but I stood firm and got that damn medicine into his mouth!

I was ecstatic. Finally, I’d found a way to administer Turnip’s antibiotics! One that actually worked! And now he was on the road to recovery! He was walking out of cat herpes Hell!

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Instead of swallowing the medicine I’d just given him, Turnip opened his mouth and let the stuff spill off his tongue! I couldn’t believe it! I still don’t believe it!

Turnip has since gotten better. And I no longer rely on video games to help me deal with real-life situations.