[bbgapril]

The doorbell rang, and within minutes we were standing in the kitchen, drinking beers and both of us probably worrying that we were about to exhaust my ability to communicate in her native tongue. But soon that would be the least of my worries. In the middle of trying to ask Andrea if she likes to dance to young people's music, I felt a flutter in my midsection, accompanied by a guttural pronouncement so loud it threatened to drown out my own voice.
Maybe it was because I was mentally refreshing my language lessons, but it suddenly struck me how much pre-diarrheal grumblings sound like German words.
"ENTSCHULDIGUNG!" was the next thing uttered by my rapidly clenching stomach. Appropriately, Andrea looked up in response.
"Sind Sie Kaffee machen?" she asked.
Am I making coffee?
I thought I must have mistranslated her at first, then finally I realized that yes, the loud, ominous gurgling coming from my gut could easily be mistaken for the percolating of some bachelor's crappy coffeemaker.
It's remarkable how quickly one knows that one is about to have a traumatic potty making experience. Maybe that's the body's way of buying you the precious seconds you need. I was already calculating the number of steps to the bathroom, speculating on whether I would have time to lift the lid to the toilet, when my own voice cried out loudly in my head.