Le'ts Get This Party Poter Started

Ever since that very special episode of Jackass, the one where Johnny Jackhole decides to strap himself inside a feces filled box and flip it upside down, the mere sight of aPorta-Potty makes me want to wretch. I've never actually even seen that show, but somehow I think most of North America has stumbled across footage of that portable toilet stunt. In case you haven't, for some reason, some jackass (hence the title) barricaded himself into a completely full Porta-Potty and with a crane, had the thing turned upsidedown while he was in it. Why? A very good question. Even thinking about it makes me sick.

An extreme, MTV related, aversion to portable bathrooms now makes my life very difficult, because my neighborhood is new construction, and there are Sani-Stops strewn about everywhere. I can't escape them.

Actually, once, while our house was still being built, my wife had to use one that was oh so conveniently located in our driveway. I'm sure that she had all the standard complaints about this particular Tidy-Toity visit; smell, heat, insanely high humidity that always makes me believe that relieving myself smack dab in the middle of a shit cloud (Run for the hills everybody, there's a giant shit-cloud coming -- bonus points for anyone who can name that quote), the lock, the cleanliness (or lack there of), and of course, there's the view. BUT, my wife actually came out of this particular hot box laughing that day. Why? Because some bored construction fella, with his pants around his ankles and a mean one a brewin', found a Sharpie marker in his pocket mid-dump and decided to brand the plastic wall with his personal brand of poo related humor. My bride was amused to the point of "you need to go in there and see this" when she saw an arrow pointing into the bowl partnered with the words "John's Lunch Box."

Everyday now, on my way out, I pass John's lunchbox. Now that we've moved in, it's no longer in my driveway, but it's still close by, as are several of its closest friends: Sal's brown bag (one block down), Frank's Thermos (2 1/2blocks away behind and aptly named dumpster), and Big Earl's Lipton Cup O'Soup (right at the edge of the neighborhood). Each time I pass one of these fellas and their noon-time meals, I can't help but think of all the great porta-potties of my past.

Like, the one on the Thunderbird Golf Course. I don't like golf. Don't like it. Many reasons. Too boring. Too much walking. Not enough hitting. However, golf seems to be one of those things you need to partake in to succeed in business, probably reason number seventeen for Mike leaving the business world.

Back in my days in sales, golf became one of those things that Icouldn't avoid on occasion. One particularly lovely afternoon (the same afternoon that I got hit in the back of the head with a golf ballwhile leaving the 18th hole), I went golfing with my boss and a couple of other sales guys. Much drunken hilarity ensued, the highlightbeing a 6' 10" bean pole using the Sani-Stop on hole ten, and my boss urging me to park the cart in front of the door, blocking any hope of exit from the poo scented box. Scott, the beanpole, was not very happy, but the whole office enjoyed the snapshots of him almost tipping the outhouse over in an attempt at freedom when they were posted on the office bulletin board Monday morning.

Another winner was the row of Porta-Lets lined up at the top of a hill during one of those weekend long festival concerts that I attended about fifteen years ago. The gates were crashed, the crowd was larger than expected, and the guy whose job it was to calculate the amount of poopie ka ka generated by a throng of music lovers was off by a few metric tons. Pretty soon, there was a human waste Slip N Slide (not sold in stores) running down the hill.

People, drug/alcohol induced lacking of their mental faculties people, decided that slipping and sliding indeed did look like fun. I had never been happier that I'd just said no, but that didn't stop me from watching the festivities as a great mass of twenty-somethings stood in line to repeatedly slide on their bellies through human feces. Watch? Hell yeah, it was hilarious, and I was upwind.

There's also a portable restroom adjacent to the baseball field I hold my practices at in the summer. A two hour practice is way too long for a sixth grader to hold it, so I'm often asked, "Coach, can I use thebathroom?"

This past season, however, one particularly pronunciation challenged second baseman repeatedly asked to use the "Party Poter" (poe ter, not potter). As soon as one teammate overheard his request, the rest of the season, "Party Poter" trips were all the rage. No matter where we played, home, road, a trip to the bathroom was "Party Poter" time. I even had to stymie a dugout chant of "Par Tee Poe Ter, Par Tee PoeTer..." when good ole #2 hit a clutch double.

They were about to begin again during his next at bat, but a quick glare put a stop to it. Instead, an unintentional (?), but equally toiletriffic chorus of "Go Number Two, Go Number Two" got going.

So, whatever name you have for it, Porta-Potty, Sani-Stop, Sani-Spot,Outhouse, Porta-John, Sani-Flush, Porta-Let, Tidy-Toity, John's LunchBox, remember, take a deep breath, flip the lock to occupied, have a seat, and go #2.