Outhouse Humor

I've done more than my share of camping and hunting, and I've definitely seen way too many outhouses. This occurred to me last night while I was falling asleep and realized there was a bucket of soiled diapers about 4 feet from my head. I don't care if they are triple-sealed or whatever--Essentially, I'm sleeping next to the toilet. So it's arguable that I haven't gotten too far ahead in life at this point.

Gar can tell you about the "worst outhouse in the world" (feel free to comment, buddy--I know you're reading this), which we encountered at this terrible rip-off hunt that we found ourselves on one time in East Texas, where this creepy guy with a prosthetic jaw (I think you get one free if you send in 200 can-lids of skoal) that he kept having to re-adjust in front of us kept telling us how there were deer "everywhere" but he smiled just a little too big (or was that his dip-jaw popping out of joint?) when he took our money and nobody ever saw evidence of life on this place-we nicknamed it the Cherynobl ranch.

Somehow, and I hesitate to be too graphic, I (along with my hair-trigger gag reflex) was spared during our 1 1/2 day stay from having to use what became a very urgent topic at camp. Apparently, the outhouse hole had been filled up to the very top and it was extremely inadviseable to sit down on the seat or you will be "king of the mountain". I know, gross, but I would say it's an important safety tip, especially in the dark.

I'm attaching a picture--believe it or not, this isn't the outhouse, this was the "executive suite" that we slept in on the same trip. Yes, it's a miracle we survived. That guy was such a redneck con man...



But I was always creeped out in general that there was something alive down in there. I guess this was a common thing that was worried about, because at scout camp on about the 3rd day you start noticing some of the younger kids walking kind of sideways and slow, maybe even doubled over (not talking about me here). And then there was that kid whose colon exploded at camp one time (also not me)...

There was this really cool picture of my brother Don naked in a trash can full of calomine lotion and water because he fell in a big bush of nettle and got it all over himself.

Then there was this group of kids that decided not to haul their trash down from their camp, so they hurled it all down inside the outhouse hole. The camp busted them and made them come back and fetch the bags out--is that legal? I'm telling you, they would have my resignation from boy scouts right then and there.

That, combined with outhouses full of bees nests, taking FREEZING cold showers in the woods, stepping on scorpions with bare feet, the omnipresent (at least in my life) threat of snakes, and scoutmasters (nowadays, need I say more?)--I think I'll introduce Ryan to camping via a Winnebago.