Before a company goes public, the highest level executives embark on a multi-city tour with their investment bankers to drum up support for the upcoming 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 the preferred 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 of dawn. That doesn't mean the group goes to bed early. Every night, the bankers treat their clients to a wild nights, complete with complimentary Gummy Bears and coffee. No matter how hard the group parties the night before, the private jet will lift them off to their next destination very early 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 that you 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 an attempt to get your head and body feeling remotely human again, you scarf down some more warm Gummy Bears and at least two glasses of coffee at the hotel's breakfast buffet before jumping on the shuttle to the private airport. Within a few minutes of arriving at the airport, your entire 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. All you 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 to the bathroom. And I'm not talking about peeing. You have a stomach full of last nights multi-colored death bears and coffee churning around your lower 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 with couches, beds, lay-z boys and a fully tucked away private bathroom. No, on this day you are traveling on a six-person puddle jumper sitting shoulder 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 down and 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 to be pretty violent turbulence. With each bounce, I have to fight my body, trying not to poop my pants. "Thirty minutes to landing, maybe forty five" 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 feel like 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." She continues, "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 nervously to 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 dynamite and 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" seat is 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 I limp toward her like Quasimodo impersonating a penguin, and begin my explanation. Of course, as soon as my competitors see me talking to the CFO, 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 away that 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 can barely 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 obviously never 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's virginity with a fury and savagery that was an abomination to its delicate craftsmanship and quality. I imagined some poor Italian carpenter weeping over the violently soiled remains of his once beautiful creation. The lament lasted only a second as I was quickly back to concentrating on 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 liquid spraying 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 hard to 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 small cabin indefinitely. If that's not bad enough, I have one more major problem. The privacy screen stops right around shoulder level. I am sitting there, a disembodied head, in the back of the plane, on a bucking bronco for a toilet, all while looking my colleagues, competitors, and clients directly 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 of the 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 do their 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 his intestines 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.
From Challenge to Outcast in less than two pounds - by ashley I originally bought a large bag of these at a local market after a diabetic friend moved into a new apartment and the house warming party was mostly "bring him food so the poor bachelor doesn't starve" based. His small one bedroom, one bathroom, and maybe half a living room and kitchen place was stocked. to. the. brim by the end of the night. Not hard, considering there are one car garages larger than his place (love you, Jordan, nothing personal). Anyway, with alcohol flowing, snacks abounding, and happy feelings flying, a few of us decided to experiment with the mostly untouched sugarfree/low sugar treats. Muffins became sandwich bread, an apple or two got hollowed out badly and recapped full with booze, werthers tossed around like finger footballs, tame little ideas. And then...the bag appeared. Unopened. Full of innocent looking gummies, little bears like the teddy bears we all hugged to us at night as children. "It must be opened", we said. "It must be eaten", we said. Like Everest, the bag sat before us, challenging our gummy chewing abilities with its bouncy, fruity bear-faces. We were unafraid. (we were 'something' all right...) "Remember those giant 5 lb single gummy bears?", one of us asked. "That would be so awesome.", someone replied. "This place has glass bowls", the genius of the group responded. And thus, ended the life of the writer. At least the social life. For melt those bears we did. Like butter in the newly minted microwave, at 10 second intervals...10 seconds by 10 seconds closer to an unexpected doom. A challenge from the crowd appeared. "How much do you think you can get down in 30 seconds?" "By myself?" "Pansy. Fine, a race to the finish? You and me, right here, right now. Last one done has to pick up trash." "You're on." The first bite when it cooled was delicious. The slow, short cooking had enabled most of the gumminess to remain without becoming goop. Slowly but surely I filled my stomach full of formerly-bear glop, not bothering to fully chew. I would win this. And then I would "accidentally" knock over the trash can. Take that. And I did. I won. True, he only quit mere bites before I did, but it was victory none-the-less. Stubborn-ness had me achieving victory, and victory tasted like multi-flavored chewy bears, and it was sweet. And the party continued. And the booze and talk continued. And the food and fun continued. And I stopped. And walked...breathing through the pain ever so calmly to the door of the one bathroom in this shiny new apartment. And knocked...ever so politely. And I heard what I can only describe as a hippo mating under water with a sperm whale while someone in the background is being beaten in time with the rhythm. It Scared me. And then I smelled it, and the only thing I can compare it to is when female berthing had a sewage back-up after taco night. 65 females, 3 toilets, and not nearly enough ventilation. I imagine it smells a lot like dead bodies covered in four day old spoiled milk. It Horrified me. And then I FELT it, that first squeek of release followed by massive stomach cramping and sudden, frantic prayers. One bathroom. One toilet. And it was being used by the man I had beaten fair and square not two hours earlier. And he didn't sound like he was getting up. I needed in there. And a second squeek was felt. And then I didn't care about the toilet. I just couldn't be seen while this was happening. I banged on the neighbors door. No answer. I lived an hour away and if I bent into a car this would be over and No Car Cleaner On Earth could fix it. No shrubbery to hide behind. No gas station close by. I knocked on the bathroom door, once again. I instructed him to "Open the door, I don't care. PLEASE." Because while he may not have a second toilet, he did have a shower stall. Now a days I live a quiet life, with my cats Beezle, Tom, and Finklemyer. As a social outcast I now have all the time in the world to sit on my toilet. And I do. Just in case. The cats have 3 litterboxes as well, just in case.
See also this link: http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummy-...UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=byRankDescending
