It’s 2:00 pm. During lunch you ate that enchilada a tad fast and, right now, you’re sitting at your cubicle feeling the buttons of your khaki pants pinch into your gut. You’re thinking that maybe tooting the ol’ poop cannon could alleviate some of the bloat. So you subtly lift a butt cheek to release the valve and then maybe, just maybe, the innocent gas bubble you released came with a friend whom you don’t recognize because she’s been digested all to shit (ha!) and isn’t nearly as attractive as when you first met her.

You feel the cold icy dagger of panic shoot through your spine as you realize that, unbeknownst to you, your poop cannon was loaded. In layman’s terms; you crapped your pants. In public! Don’t just stew in your own snail trail, wondering what to do next, here are some handy tips on how to save yourself from further embarrassment when you become the victim of a shart attack!

1. Find the Closest Bathroom

You need to assess and contain the damage quickly and to do that you need to get to a bathroom. It’s imperative that you find the one that’s closest to you so you can lessen the chance of possibly bumping into anybody. The last thing you need is someone corralling you into a conversation and having the added pressure of thinking up an excuse to get out of there before they wonder about that awful smell that’s making their eyes water.

2. Cover Your Smell

Speaking of smell, your ass is emitting a pungent, landfill like odor which will most certainly get people’s attention and attention is the last thing you want. You need to try and mask your unfortunate stank with some type of air freshener. It could be your cologne, a candle or, if you’re really desperate, get some gum, chew it up and hope blowing the minty freshness into the air is enough to cover your stench.

If you don’t have any of these things (and honestly, that gum tip is something we totally just made up with no proper research, so we can’t fully stand behind it), your best bet is speed. Walk at a brisk pace to the bathroom, gather some momentum and try to get the air “moving” around you. At best, by the time they smell you, you’ll be long gone.

3. Cover Your Ass!

Since you can’t be sure if you have a visible racing stripe on the seat of your pants, you’ll have to play it safe and make sure your butt gets zero face time with anyone. If you have a jacket handy, don’t do the obvious and tie it around your waist. Not only will you look like a douche with a capital bag, but since not a lot of people over 9-years-old tie their jacket around their waist, you’ll also draw unnecessary attention to your unfortunate predicament.

Try to walk near a wall to shield one part of your ass and then casually carry your jacket by the butt loaf half that’s in view. Your jacket won’t cover your entire backside but it will cast shadows and provide a visual diversion as you head to the bathroom.

4. Check Your Walk

Before you head to the bathroom, one must clench one’s butt cheeks because clearly your bottom half can’t be trusted to know the difference between letting go of a fart and letting go of some bowel candies. Find a way to walk with your butt cheeks clenched together in a way that’s not going to make you look like a penguin because again, getting to the bathroom like a stealth ninja is the goal.

So, just in case there’s more beans in your burrito, clench your crack canoe and seal that pipe nice and tight before heading to the bathroom. Another blowout will literally just make your bad situation even shittier.

5. Say Bye Bye to Mr. Boxers

You’ve made it to the bathroom and now it’s time to review the damage. It’s likely that you’ll have to say goodbye to the real victim in this entire situation; your underwear. Your poor, unsuspecting underwear were merely doing their job before being pied in the face with your keester cake. Try not to look at it directly; you want to remember your underwear when it was at its best; innocent and fresh out of the package, instead of at its worst; violated and dirty from the meteors of Uranus.

Wrap your briefs up in toilet paper, paper towels or even those toilet bowl liners and bid then adieu (A-DOO! Get it?).

If you got a little bit of shitlets on your pants, you need to spot clean very carefully. A little dab of water and hand soap will be just enough to take away the smell and any…um…excess. Hopefully the stain won’t be so massive that you need to use a lot of water and it’ll dry quickly. But if you dumped a major bomb, THIS would be the time to tie that jacket around your waist because desperate times calls for you to cover your butt mud by all means necessary.

6. Clean Your Sad Little Self

Your crapshoot needs to get bitch slapped for getting you into this mess but you probably won’t have time for that. Telling you to wipe your ass goes without saying. We do, however, recommend dampening the toilet paper for a more economical wipe. Wiping your ass with wet TP will not only clean off a lot more than dry TP, but it also cuts down on your toilet paper use, avoiding a heinous crack rash and lessening the chance of you clogging the company toilet.

Understand that a shart attack is more than just a mere accident comparable to tripping in public. Your coping skills after a shart will be judged by either you killing it or it killing you. It can turn into one unfortunate incident that you don’t tell anyone else about or the moment in your life that defined you as a man for the rest of your days. (“Oh yes. Greg, he’ll be great for that Vice President position! Wait. Is this the Greg that shit his pants in front of the whole office?”)

Written By Elaine Chaney who was impressed with herself at how many poop euphemisms she knew off hand. Read more from her at Sanity, Interrupted.