Toilet humor

When I was getting potty trained there was a period of time where I was absolutely terrified by our toilet. I used to even flush my underwear down with my doodies just to make sure that the "toilet monster" was well fed. I thought that this way he'd not be hungry enough to eat me. My mom and dad used to pull their hair out trying to snake out my Fruit of the Looms from the plugged up toilet. Eventually, I gave up going on my own and sought out other places to do my business.

I found that the closets of my siblings, namely my two middle sisters, was a great place to hide and take a crap. I think I even crapped in one of their shoes. I have a distinct memory of listening to Peter Frampton on my sister's eight-track Panasonic and making a little log cabin in the corner of her closet. When I hear the lyrics "Woke up one morning with a wine glass in my hand. What wine? Who's wine? Where the hell did I dine?" It brings back certain dark memories. I mean, there was no light in there. I couldn't see what I was doing!

Eventually, I was tortured to death by the wrath of my middle sisters' sharp nails and nougies. This posed certain problems. See, if I crapped in my oldest sister's closet, she would either smoke it (that's good shit) or her vast array of stoner boyfriends would hunt me down and kill me for giving them a bad trip. They didn't care that I was only just three at the time. Hell, I might have been four by then. The freakin' toilet monster was still pretty damn real to me.

The other option was to do it in my big brother's closet, which I did and was severely beaten for. The other part of that problem was that we shared a room together and I would have to smell my own doo doo feces if I continued to use my brother's closet. I had no closet, so that was not an option. It was either my mother's sewing room or outside. Hey, I figured that my dogs did it out there, so why not me?

I found a nice secluded spot on the West side of the house right next to our central air compressor. There were two trees that grew out from another in a tight "V" and had two knots that I could use as footholds in order to straddle effectively. This setup worked great. I even came up with a game called "Rocket Ship". I would do a countdown and blast off, all with cool rocket noises. It wasn't actually rocket fuel that was being expended, but it surely was quite a spectacular scene. Even the neighbors thought so. Eventually, it all came to an end for me.

I remember it well. This time I was almost five and still going out to the side of the house and playing Crap Armstrong, Alan Shityard, and Butt Aldrin. I forgot that my friend Jason was coming over to play. Jason came and asked my brother and his friend where I was--they were playing some one on one in the driveway on the East side of the house. After they looked in all the usual places they found me.

So, here I am up in a tree making rocket noises with no pants on and crap dangling out my asshole. I was totally oblivious to anything else going on until I heard this: "Oh my god! Your brother is taking a shit in a tree!!!" Scarred for life does not even begin to describe the absolute horror that I went through that day. I mean, I was in my little fantasy world, taking care of business, and then I look to see that I have an audience. My friend ran away from me. I put my pants on and tried to convince him to come back. He just kept going. Do you know what that does to a kid? I know that the toilet monster was behind all of this. He was always going to get me one way or another.

I look back and laugh at this moment in my life. It is so damn funny to me, but it wasn't back then. I had to be shamed into properly using the toilet. My friend wouldn't play with me for a month, and Joe, my bro's "Mexican Twin" friend (a real "Pancho and Lefty", those two) just loved holding that one over my head. That was probably the single most embarrassing thing from my early years as a child. I do feel liberated telling ya'll this, so liberated, in fact, that I just may need to feed the toilet monster right now.