This happened a few days ago and I still physically recoil every time my brain randomly replays it.
I live near Portland, and because the weather here is usually either freezing rain or “mysterious gray moisture floating sideways,” everybody collectively loses their minds the second there’s one warm sunny day. Last Sunday was one of those rare perfect days where it suddenly felt illegal to stay indoors, so I decided to go hiking before spending another weekend melting into my desk chair.
My girlfriend had to work, most of my friends were busy, and honestly I kind of wanted the alone time anyway. Work has been stressful lately and I figured a few hours in the woods would probably reset my brain a little.
Important detail for later: before leaving, I made the catastrophic decision to stop at Dutch Bros and order the largest iced coffee known to mankind.
At the time it felt harmless.
It was not harmless.
The first part of the hike was honestly perfect. The trail wasn’t too crowded, the weather was warm without being miserable, and everything looked aggressively Pacific Northwest. Pine trees everywhere, moss-covered rocks, tiny streams, people wearing expensive hiking gear they probably bought three days ago because the sun came out.
For about an hour I was having a genuinely peaceful experience.
Then my stomach started making threats.
At first I ignored it because I assumed it would pass, but the coffee apparently had other plans. Within ten minutes I went from “slightly uncomfortable” to “I need to find somewhere immediately or this becomes a survival story.”
Now if you hike a lot, you already know many trails seem designed by people who think bathrooms weaken character. There was supposedly one at the trailhead, which at that point was far behind me, and absolutely nothing ahead except trees and suffering.
So I decided I’d step off the trail for a minute and handle things privately like every desperate hiker since the beginning of time.
That decision directly ruined at least two lives.
The woods off trail were pretty dense. You couldn’t see very far ahead because of all the bushes and trees, and I was mainly focused on finding somewhere hidden enough that I wouldn’t accidentally traumatize another human being.
Ironically.
As I walked farther in, I heard rustling nearby and immediately froze because my first thought was genuinely “please don’t let that be a bear.”
For context, I know black bears in this area usually avoid people, but logic disappears very quickly when you’re alone in the woods with your stomach cramping.
The rustling continued and I slowly stepped around this cluster of bushes expecting maybe a deer or another hiker.
Instead, I made direct eye contact with a man having the worst moment of his entire existence.
This poor guy was fully squatted behind a fallen log with his shorts around his ankles, completely mid-shit.
And not in a casual way either.
This man was fighting for his life.
The thing burned into my memory forever is that I actually saw his face before my brain fully processed the rest of the situation. He had this unbelievably intense expression like every muscle in his body was focused on surviving whatever battle his digestive system had declared against him.
Then he noticed me.
I have never seen a human expression transform so quickly.
One second: concentration.
Next second: absolute spiritual devastation.
It honestly looked like his ancestors felt embarrassment through him.
And because apparently the universe thought this situation needed sound design, right as we locked eyes I heard it happen.
A very distinct forest poop noise.
Not loud. Just… unmistakable.
Time stopped.
There was this horrible suspended silence afterward where neither of us moved. I could hear birds chirping somewhere above us, leaves moving in the wind, distant hikers talking on the trail, and meanwhile two grown men were trapped in the most psychologically violent eye contact of all time.
I think my body short-circuited because instead of immediately leaving like a normal person, I accidentally yelled “OH JESUS CHRIST” loud enough to scare both of us.
Then I stepped backward directly into a tree branch.
The branch snapped loudly.
The guy still hadn’t said a single word. He just stared at me with this expression that somehow combined humiliation, rage, and complete emotional surrender all at once.
Like his brain had accepted that nothing good would ever happen to him again.
At that point my survival instincts finally kicked in and I turned to leave, except the ground was uneven and covered in roots, so naturally I immediately tripped over a rock and nearly face-planted into the dirt.
I managed to catch myself before fully eating shit, but not gracefully. There was a lot of flailing involved.
So now from this stranger’s perspective, some random idiot burst into his private emergency bathroom situation, screamed at him, snapped a branch like Bigfoot, almost died falling over a rock, and then panic-ran back toward civilization.
I genuinely don’t know how he processed that sequence of events.
The walk back to the trail felt like fleeing a crime scene.
Every person I passed afterward looked suspiciously normal and emotionally stable, while I felt like I had just witnessed something forbidden by nature. I kept replaying the moment in my head trying to convince myself it wasn’t actually that bad.
But then my brain would replay the sound effect.
That’s the part that keeps haunting me.
If I had only seen him, maybe we both could’ve mentally recovered eventually. But hearing the actual moment happen created a level of intimacy between strangers that should not legally exist.
The worst part is I started imagining the story from his perspective.
Imagine being in the middle of an emergency forest shit, finally finding a hidden private spot, thinking you’re safe, and then suddenly some caffeinated idiot crashes through the bushes and locks eyes with you at the exact worst possible moment.
I would have to move states.
There’s no recovery from that.
I texted my girlfriend afterward because I needed another human being to carry this burden with me, and she laughed so hard she cried. She said the fact I yelled “OH JESUS CHRIST” probably made the situation infinitely worse because now the guy likely thinks he permanently traumatized me.
Which honestly isn’t inaccurate.
And now I’ve developed a completely irrational fear that somehow I’ll run into him again someday. Like what if he lives nearby? What if we both go to the same grocery store? What if I unknowingly walk past him at a coffee shop and he immediately recognizes me as The Witness?
There’s also part of me that feels genuinely guilty because the guy was probably already having a horrible time before I showed up. Nobody chooses to emergency-poop in the woods because life is going well.
Anyway, to the random guy near Forest Park who accidentally shared the most vulnerable moment of his life with me: I’m deeply sorry. I hope your stomach settled down, I hope your hike improved afterward, and I hope you eventually found a level of emotional healing that I personally may never achieve.