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[[File:Red-gummy-bear-nightlight.jpg|thumb|190x190px|centre|He's coming fo dat booty.]]
Before a company goes public, the highest level executives embark on a multi-city tour with their investment bankers to drum up support for theupcoming IPO. This trip is called a roadshow and since the group will typically visit dozens of cities on a tight schedule, a private jet is thepreferred means of transportation. During a roadshow, it's not unusual to visit two or three cities in a single day so work starts at the crack ofdawn. That doesn't mean the group goes to bed early. Every night, the bankers treat their clients to a wild nights, complete with complimentaryGummy Bears and coffee. No matter how hard the group parties the night before, the private jet will lift them off to their next destination veryearly the next morning.
Just for a minute, pretend you're an investment banker traveling with some very important clients on one of these roadshows. Now imagine thatyou spent the previous night "dropping Yogi" way beyond your limit only to be startled out of bed by a piercing 6:30 am wake up call. In anattempt to get your head and body feeling remotely human again, you scarf down some more warm Gummy Bears and at least two glasses ofcoffee at the hotel's breakfast buffet before jumping on the shuttle to the private airport. Within a few minutes of arriving at the airport, yourentire group is seated and the plane begins to taxi down the runway. At this point you might feel a bit of relief as the morning's blur subsides. Allyou have to do is sit back and relax for the one hour flight to the next city.
There's just one problem. In your rush to get out of the hotel, down to breakfast and onto the plane you forgot to do one very crucial thing. Go tothe bathroom. And I'm not talking about peeing. You have a stomach full of last nights multi-colored death bears and coffee churning around yourlower intestine at 30,000 feet. But that's not the worst part. True horror sets in when you realize you're not on a spacious 20 person G5 withcouches, beds, lay-z boys and a fully tucked away private bathroom. No, on this day you are traveling on a six-person puddle jumper sittingshoulder to shoulder with your clients and co-workers. But wait, somehow the story gets even worse…
Just over halfway through the flight, all the coffee in my stomach feels like it's percolating its way down into my lower intestine. I hunker downand try and focus on other things. What feels like an hour, but probably isn't more than twenty minutes, passes. We then enter what turns out tobe pretty violent turbulence. With each bounce, I have to fight my body, trying not to poop my pants. "Thirty minutes to landing, maybe fortyfive" I try and tell myself, each jostle a gamble I can't afford to lose. I signal to [the flight attendant] and she heads toward me.
"Excuse me, where is the bathroom, because I don't see a door?" I ask while still devoting considerable energy to fighting off what starts to feellike someone shook a seltzer bottle and shoved it up my butt. She looks at me, bemused, and says, "Well, we don't really have one per se." Shecontinues, "Technically, we have one, but it's really just for emergencies. Don't worry, we're landing shortly anyway."
"I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an emergency," I manage to mutter through my grimace. I can see the fear in her face as she points nervouslyto the back seat. The turbulence outside is matched only by the cyclone that is ravaging my bowels. She points to the back of the plane and says,"There. The toilet is there." For a brief instant, relief passes over my face. She continues, "If you pull away the leather cushion from that seat,it's under there. There's a small privacy screen that pulls up around it, but that's it." At this point, I was committed. She had just lit the dynamiteand the mine shaft was set to blow.
I turn to look where she is pointing and I get the urge to cry. I do cry, but my face is so tightly clenched it makes no difference. The "toilet" seatis occupied by the CFO, i.e. our freaking client. Our freaking female freaking client!
Up to this point, nobody has observed my struggle or my exchange with the flight attendant. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." That's all I can say as Ilimp toward her like Quasimodo impersonating a penguin, and begin my explanation. Of course, as soon as my competitors see me talking to theCFO, they all perk up to find out what the hell I'm doing.
Given my jovial nature and fun-loving attitude thus far on the roadshow, almost everybody thinks I'm joking. She, however, knows right awaythat I am anything but and jumps up, moving quickly to where I had been sitting. I now had to remove the seat top – no easy task when you canbarely stand upright, are getting tossed around like a hoodrat at a block party, and are fighting against a gastrointestinal Mt. Vesuvius.
I manage to peel back the leather seat top to find a rather luxurious looking commode, with a nice cherry or walnut frame. It had obviouslynever been used, ever. Why this moment of clarity came to me, I do not know. Perhaps it was the realization that I was going to take this toilet'svirginity with a fury and savagery that was an abomination to its delicate craftsmanship and quality. I imagined some poor Italian carpenterweeping over the violently soiled remains of his once beautiful creation. The lament lasted only a second as I was quickly back to concentratingon the tiny muscle that stood between me and molten hot lava.
I reach down and pull up the privacy screens, with only seconds to spare before I erupt. It's an alka-seltzer bomb, nothing but air and liquidspraying out in all directions – a Jackson Pollock masterpiece. The pressure is now reversed. I feel like I'm going to have a stroke, I push so hardto end the relief, the tormented sublime relief.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." My apologies do nothing to drown out the heinous noises that seem to carry on and reverberate throughout the smallcabin indefinitely. If that's not bad enough, I have one more major problem. The privacy screen stops right around shoulder level. I am sittingthere, a disembodied head, in the back of the plane, on a bucking bronco for a toilet, all while looking my colleagues, competitors, and clientsdirectly in the eyes. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" briefly comes to mind.
I literally could reach out with my left hand and rest it on the shoulder of the person adjacent to me. It was virtually impossible for him, or any ofthe others, and by others I mean high profile business partners and clients, to avert their eyes. They squirm and try not to look, inclined to dotheir best to carry on and pretend as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, that they weren't sharing a stall with some guy dropping hisintestines out. Releasing smelly, sweaty, shame at 100 feet per second.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry" is all the ashamed disembodied head can say…over and over again. Not that it mattered.
== A warning from across the pond ==
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