The Unsolved Story of My Home’s Mystery Pooper

“That’s odd,” I thought to myself the first time I saw it. It wasn’t highly noticeable. 

At first. 

It was one of those quacky quirks of life where, when you learn or find something new, you can’t stop noticing it. It’s called the “frequency illusion” and it occurs every day.

Just like:

• The first time you learned the word Bitcoin, and suddenly everyone won’t shut up about it. 

• or that weird mole you never knew about on your right buttocks that’s now seemingly able to whisper thoughts of inadequacy every time you go to a changing room. 

• or that family of vapid moralless makeup-caked idiots who are 100% definitely not quasi-pornstars with a family name stemming from Star Trek Deep Space 9 who somehow are all now so incredulously popular they’ve become billionaires and are the surest sign that we’re living in the evil timeline.

Ahhhh, sorry. 

But f*ck the Cardassians though, seriously. Great show though.

Anyway, back to the history of my mystery.

What did it look like?

It was situated on my bedroom wall. Couldn’t be larger than a tac, but in an ovoidal shape (yes, apparently that’s a word).

It was a mixture of dark grey with a bit of white mixed in and had teeny tiny points on the top and bottom.

Imagine it looked something like this:

()

But only not an emoji symbol for a vageen (I believe that’s the medical term).

I didn’t think too much of it and quickly grabbed a Kleenex® (not an affiliate link) to wipe it off.

Easy peezy, I went on with my day all breezy.

The next day it was back. In the same spot, or at least that’s what my brain thought.

Oh well.

Another wipe, another breezy day.

On the third day, it returned again but was plopped down on another wall. And above the little ledger thingy on the top of my bathroom door frame. And behind my bedroom door. And in 5 other random spots throughout my house (that I was aware of).

I clearly had a pooplexing mystery on my hands. 

A sh*tstorm in my house

This went on for weeks on end until I finally called in reinforcements. I was going under the presumption that this may, in fact, be some sort of mold. 

I live near the oceanside in a dank old apartment building full of dank old people like myself and encountering mold isn’t out of the norm.

Or rather, it probably is the norm. 

And some of it is the same black stuff the TV box told us to be mortally afraid of as a child. But through the magic of the new-age TV ran by interns with nets, I was able to find out this particular strain is harmless, albeit with an odd side effect of severely warped humor. 

Phew. 

I got off Scott®-free with that one. (Not an affiliate link.)

But I had no idea what this mystery ovoid was. It was clearly a job for John, my old pal who’s an expert on everything foreigners experience here in Taiwan.

His response was curt: “Lizard.”

Ahh, that made sense. It’s been a long time since I had an uninvited house guest in the form of a tiny cute scaly creature with a whiplike walking pace. 

Normally my visiting friends are far slower, larger, and only poop on my walls occasionally, out of vengeance.

Generally, I like having the lizard friends around, though. They eat my other roommates.

Case closed. 

Just need to resign myself to the occasional wipe of a 100% recycled extra-smooth handcream embalmed Kleenex® tissue on my tiny ovoid guests.

The mystery pooper 

John came for a visit a few months later with a few friends. Some laughs were had, some beers were drunk, and some tissue was sold in a completely unaffiliated manner. 

“How’s your house guest?”

I was more than happy to show them. But while the evidence of my assumably young lizardy friend was a reoccurring phenomenon, I had yet to actually see the corporeal form of the lizard itself. My religious friends tell me similar stories.

“Hmm, that’s not from a lizard.”

I asked why. I asked them all why. I possibly screamed the question in a hyperventilated manner, too, but I’ll delete this line later so I’m not embarrassed.

“The color is completely different.”

Well, shit. 

I mean, that’s what I literally thought it was for a long while. Oh, shit. And it may very well be. 

But I have no idea what is producing it. As far as I can tell, it’s not me. But then again, I eat Taiwanese food every day and you know what they say about that…

“It’s f*cking delicious.”

I suppose this is the part where I wrap up the story with a nice lesson, conclusion, or joke. 

At the very least, I should tell you what, in fact, is producing the ovoidal objects on the walls of my homely abode.

To that I say, go read the title again, dummy. 

SOMETHING IS SHITTING ON MY WALLS AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS!

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J.J. Pryor

Please press the heart button/comment/share if you support me in my existential battle with the Evil Algorithms.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash