In his essay, “I’m Still Standing,” David Sedaris witnesses a man shitting his pants on a plane. “The man went into the bathroom and stayed there, no doubt looking for something to kill himself with.”
The incident serves as a springboard for Sedaris to delve into his own deep-seated fear of experiencing a similar embarrassment. “For surely that day is coming,” he writes, then shares a series of close-calls courtesy of a stomach virus he contracts while on a book tour.
While such fear of bodily humiliation is understandable, as someone who has shit their pants in public more than once—including, yes, while on a plane—I can tell you such horrors are very survivable. Especially if you’re fortunate enough to be wearing dark pants.
The first time I soiled myself in public took me by surprise. I was 27 or 28, walking to lunch along Kearny Street in downtown San Francisco, chatting with my colleagues at Mother Jones magazine, where I was a Social Media Fellow (i.e., paid $6.…