When I landed in Germany for Shannon’s wedding, I was hungry. I found a little bakery and bought some croissants filled with chocolate. I took a few bites and thought, “Something’s not right. It tastes funny. But maybe croissants just taste funny in Germany?”

That night I became very, very sick.

During her wedding I was still sick and spent most of the day in bed, a few steps away from a toilet. I watched most of the wedding reception through a window.

Two days later in Croatia, I was still sick. Meg said to me, “Jeffrey. You can’t plan our route based on where toilets are. You need to buy medicine.”

So I went to a pharmacy and nothing was in English. The woman behind the counter did not speak English. So, dear reader, how do you tell someone who does not speak English that you have diarrhea?

That’s right, like some fucked up game of charades I used my hands to gesture shit shooting out of my ass. And then I expressed relief on my face.

She smiled and I left the store with a small jar filled with little pills.

That night I took one. A short time later while on the toilet, I realized, to my utter horror, it was a laxative.

The good news was that whatever was in my body was gone by the morning. The bad news was that by the morning, when I woke up on the bathroom floor, I was a shriveled raisin and my butt hurt.

I went back to the pharmacy and I used my hands to gesture shit staying in my body. The same woman laughed like it was the funniest joke she’s seen since the breakup of Yugoslavia.

If you feel compelled to share this story, do it. You can even pretend that it happened to you.