[Herky]

Everquest was the first MMO I actually convinced my bible thumpin' parents to let me play. UO was too wizardy/occultic and I just barely convinced Dad to give a pass on EQ by promising I'd play a Paladin. (This is the same Dad featured in Trelaboon's story, btw) So in the summer of 1999 I began playing the game and extolling its virtues to all of my friends.

Within two years, I began dating a nice cutie who was into "geeky" stuff, and I convinced her to play EQ with me. She rolls a character and first logs in, when a mutual RL friend whispers her: "We're sooo going to twink your ass!"

She immediately got up and walked away from the computer, and it took extensive convincing before she believed my explanation of what that meant. To this day she doesn't like that guy, figuring he's a "creep" lol.

So fast forward to project 1999's beginning. I was living in Japan at the time, making a living as an English teacher while exploring the world... I was dating a very beautiful bilingual Japanese girl and had convinced her to try playing as well. She wasn't as keen, unfortunately, but I got her to at least give it a shot. (And let me explain that she was the full package, as far as I was concerned.. I very much wanted to marry her.)

So Sunday morning, we wake up in my apartment bedroom and I boot up the PC and log in, then have her sit in the computer chair and start guiding her through the ropes of making a new character.

Meanwhile, I'm standing behind her and to the left a bit, offering advice... I feel a massive morning fart bubbling in my guts, and figure I'll try for a squeaker but wasn't too concerned since I've let some nasty sounding ones rip in front of her before. (The Japanese are pretty cool about "normal bodily functions")

I sort of bend the knees a bit, a vaguely squatting motion, and let it rip... surprisingly, not a sound escapes.

Likewise surprisingly, I feel a significant amount of something escape.

At this point, time enters into slow motion. My face immediately burns with the shame of what just happened, oh god oh god please no, and I look down to see the confirmation of a cowpie (shaman pie?) directly below me.

It completely bypassed my (loose) boxers and landed in a gelatinous circle between my feet.

This cannot be happening, oh no, no no no, did she notice?? I look back up at her and she is intent on the character creation screen. "Hrmm, I don't like gnomes... they're too short!"

I mutter an agreeable response while the majority of my brain is in full fledged panic; what do I do?! This is beyond the worst nightmare I've ever imagined.

So I do what any reasonable panicky Everquester in this situation would do; I start fake sneezing.

"Oh man, allergies", I whisper lamely. "Could you hand me the tissues?"

She hands me the box, thank god for small miracles, and I begin pulling a few and really unconvincingly begin "blowing my nose", then furtively try to sop up last night's now-soupy sushi.

"What stat is good for wizards?"
"Strength and stamina", I answer automatically.

I continue this sneezing act while halfheartedly guiding her through the minutiae of creating a character, (to this day I don't honestly remember a single detail of what she ended up with), while amassing a significant pile of nasty wet brown tissues in my trash can. (Thank goodness for plastic bag liners!)

This whole time I'm debating in my mind as to whether she is just being a really good sport about the whole thing or if somehow angels have kept her attention away from the utter disaster occurring slightly behind her and to the left.

"Yep", I think to myself, "that's a pretty tell-tale stain on the carpet." I move the trashcan onto the stain, dreading how incredibly suspicious it looks in its new, very inconvenient, totally in the way location. "I'm going to.. I'm going to go take a shower", I tell her with what I hoped was nonchalance.

"OK honey," she replies sweetly.

She must really not have any clue. I say a prayer of thanks to Erollisi and start padding towards the shower.

I immediately feel a squishy wet sensation on my right foot, look down, and barely restrain my curses...

Yep, in my panic, I have now stepped in my own feces. My sock was soaked, and had left a pretty obvious trail away from Ground Zero. I urgently look at her, but Lo: Miracle of Miracles, she's still riveted by the character creation process.

I slip off my sock and disappear down the hallway.

To this day, I'm thoroughly convinced she never noticed it (through no small effort of distraction on my part; as soon as she quit playing EQ I whisked her out of the apartment on some pretense or other) and although we did eventually end up breaking up, it wasn't because she saw me poop myself, fake-sneeze my way to a trashcan full of brown tissues, and then step in it while making my escape to the shower.

Thankfully, even a decade after its release, Project 1999 proved EQ to be as immersive and captivating to new players as it was when I first began playing.

This is my story, shame and all.