Why mental breakdowns should happen on the crapper

People use things like yoga and other such crappy devices to 'clear their minds' and whatnot. Whenever you're mind is free to wander like that, it likes think about the 'what ifs' and the 'but maybes'. These sort of mind-journeys can lead people to realise that they need a divorce or whatever - we like to focus on the bad to scare the begesus out of ourselves. Basically, we should always be on the move; we shouldn't stop taking our caffeine and our anti-depressants and we should never, ever - for the love of all things blessed by The Big Man - should we ever take a time-out and let our mind have it's own way. The only problem, is that all of us - at least once a day - just have to take a time-out. A man's gotta poop, when a man's gotta poop.

When you're sat there above the bowl, you're exposed. You don't want to concentrate on what you're doing, or what you're about to do, or the noise that you might be making, or whether other people can hear you, or anything at all really. We end up looking at the patterns on the wall and trying to make faces out of the elaborate twirls, or read the fog-box guide and mentally circle the things you want to watch - anything to prevent out mind from doing it's thing.

Of course, if you're desperately ready to lay down your cable, you might not have time to grab the ol' Radio Times or pick up a... penguin? I wonder if you were eating on the crapper, that you're food could pass all the way through you and slosh into the basin below? Clearly I only got a double-B in GCSE Science - but it's a novel concept. Anyway, the satisfied feeling you get - having felt like you were going to burst just moment before - is the body's way of mocking you. It mocks like a bandit. On heroin. It knows you haven't got anything to read, and it will deny you the ability to see that face you made in the floral patterns last time you were here... it's got you.

So you sit there nervously; fully aware of the sloshing noises you making and that a sibling is only a few feet away through the wall. And then you start to think about life. What you've done. What you're going to do. Everything just goes to pot.

So bringing this back around full circle to my original title, I was wondering how many people have nervous breakdowns whilst…

            In the loo,
            On the crapper,
            In the John,
            Taking a dump,
            Laying a cable for BT,
            Going for a cogitation,
            Siphoning the python,
            Draining the ol' sea monster,
            Emptying the warm oven of the rectum.

Whatever title you give it, it's always the same. You sit there for a few minutes reflecting on life. No wonder that shares in Renie Soft-Chews have increased. Nobody wants to go to the toilet anymore, they're scared that they might suddenly realise that touching children is the way forward for humankind.

So please, when emptying yourself, take some reading material with you. A book. A magazine. Take somebody to talk to. Install a flat screen and DVD player. Study a parking ticket. Work on some HTML. Become interested in politics! Anything!

Because going to the toilet and realising that your life is a mess is a system apparently invented in the Soviet Union.