Brouhaha
(broo-haa-haa) – noun
an episode involving excitement, confusion, turmoil, etc., especially a broil over a minor or ridiculous cause: a brouhaha by the water-polo players resulted in three black eyes.
brewhaha
(brew-ha-ha) – noun
an episode involving terror, tumult, turbulence, etc., specifically when ones bowels are set to explode with atom-smashing force: a brewhaha by the water-polo players resulted in the condemning of the pool.
The “brew” is derived from “witches-brew” and the “haha” from the sound your friends make when it is happening to you.
It is always sudden. It is always serious. It always happens when you are unable to get to a toilet. Traffic, airplanes and dinner parties are a brewhaha’s best friends.
It begins in your belly, with a rumble and quickly snakes its way thru your intestines searching frantically for the nearest exit. There is no force in the known Universe more powerful than a brewhaha that wants to escape your insides. Not the vacuum of space, not gravity itself, not even a toddler who really really wants a cookie.
Decision-making skills are paramount when dealing with a brewhaha. Do I lay waste to Lucy and Mark’s engagement party by unleashing this toxic time bomb here? Do I fervently rush next door to Starbucks and liberate my howling colon there because doing so at work would surely get me fired? Do I attempt a mad dash home praying all the while that any loved ones and/or small pets have gone out to visit friends?
A recent tempt of fate went something like this…
I can make it. It’s only a fifteen minute walk. Very quickly sheer panic grabs hold of my soul. There is just no way that I am going to make it. My mind screams RUN! RUN! But the muscles used to “clench” and the ones used to “run” do not co-exist peacefully. Beads of sweat break out on my brow. My breathing becomes short and rapid. My heart pounds. Also see: panic attack. The pressure of a thousand suns weighs on my sphincter as the negotiations with God begin. Please, just this once. I’m a forty-two year old man, this can’t be happening to me. Just a few meters ahead is an abandoned lot that receives very serious consideration. I could duck in, drop my poisonous payload under a tree, cover it up with sand like an embarrassed cat… I hurry by. Oh Lord, please don’t let me run into anybody I know.
As I pass the point of no return I assent to the inevitable:
Shit happens.