“I had an internship a few years ago with an engineering group of an industrial plant. Every now and again they would go out somewhere for lunch and invite me along. One day they decided to go to a Chinese buffet nearby. I love Chinese food, especially cheap Chinese food, so I was totally game. It was your typical Chinese buffet and was actually pretty good.
But then one of my colleagues brought back on a plate the source of my soon-to-be woes. A singular mini octopus. I have no idea what the proper name was, but it was just a tiny octopus pickled in something and was about the size of a thumb tip. He brought it back as a joke kind of passing it around trying to get people to try it.
Then I said, ‘I’ll give it a shot.’
Everyone just kind of laughed and looked at me, but I insisted and he put it on my plate. Now I’m a pretty adventurous eater and love trying new and especially weird foods. I’ll try just about anything and enjoy doing so. I had also had octopus many times before served several different ways so I thought, ‘How bad can it be?’
Very. Bad.
I don’t remember the exact flavor but it was vinegary and salty for sure. That and it tasted like it was sitting on the buffet for a week. The texture was worse. The best way to describe it is like trying to eat a rubber bouncy ball. The thing was so hard to chew that if I actually chewed it properly, I would have vomited anyway. So I decided to just swallow it mostly whole and get it over with. It was extremely unpleasant and an all-around bad time.
However, my pain didn’t stop there. Oh no. The real pain came when we got back.
Almost immediately after getting back to the maintenance office, I could feel it. My bowels were in some of the most intense pain I ever felt. I very quickly got up and headed out of the office towards the bathroom, grabbing a clipboard on the way out to make it look like I was actually going to work instead of emptying my body of whatever I just ate. I get to the bathroom and sit on the toilet and it immediately starts spewing out, and I mean spewing. Imagine your worst diarrhea, add semi-solid chunks to it, and make it burn. That’s the level we’re dealing with here. It felt like it was relentless. I swear it must have been coming out for a solid two minutes nonstop at a time, making thunderous noise even the nearby factory floor couldn’t drown out. The fact that I didn’t cry or scream still amazes me.
After it was over, I looked down between my legs into the toilet and saw nothing but brown. Not even like brown water, just brown material. Wiping was the revenge of my expelled demon. It was like trying to clean up an oil spill with one paper towel. The single-ply toilet paper never stood a chance. Wad after wad, wipe after wipe came back brown as if I had never even attempted.
Eventually, I was finished. There was no more poo and no more wiping. I looked down again and a literal mountain of toilet paper had covered the remains of my innards. It was almost taller than the top of the seat. I flushed and didn’t even look back to see the outcome. There was already enough damage done. I washed my hands and look in the mirror at the broken man before me.
Then I check my phone and realized I had been in the bathroom for over an hour and a half. Realizing this, I grabbed my clipboard, walked out of the bathroom, and headed back to the engineering office trying my best to look like I accomplished something. I walked back into the office and sat back down at my laptop. No one said a word to me. They knew. They had to have. But they didn’t say a thing.
So, yeah. That’s my worst buffet experience. Mini octopus. Never again.”
