Today in the News: Well, kids, ‘ol Mike quit that job workin’ for the man. Turns out that big corporations really can be evil. Tough times may be ahead at the Hotel household, but the future still looks bright. I got a job driving a trash truck for the same company that owned the dump where I used to work. As bad as it sounds, it is really a lot of fun and the company that I work for has strong Christian values, which counts for me.
In related news, Carl and I are working on putting an online store together. We’re going to have standard outdoor items (any requests?) and……some one-of-a-kind items. Prices will be good (read – very affordable). I have some old axe heads, knives and leather products to sell, so be on the lookout. I’m not sure when we will launch. I suspect that we will have a few items in stock within the next couple of weeks and that we will try to grow from there. I’m also not sure if the website will be a stand alone deal or somehow hooked up as a different section on this blog. I let Carl worry about that stuff.
Seriously, make some suggestions of what you would like to see for products in the comment box below or email them to thesharpenedaxe@hotmail.com. This store will ultimately be made for all of you.
Now for some poop.
In reading B&A’s last post about outhouses, I thought I’d add my .02 cents. Some of these are manditory, others are for style and comfort.
Skills
1.) If your outhouse has a back dump feature (no pun intended) you may want to follow the rule I’m about to put forth. Back dump can be defined as a recessed wall in the back of the privy where people can shovel out the poo if it gets too high. Gross, huh? I’ve seen a few like it. When I was a child, Snuffy told me to watch out for this certain type of outhouse. He encountered one at 5:00 one morning. He sat down to do his business and heard something below him. He stood up and dropped the Coleman latern close enough to the hole to see down and witnessed a porcupine exiting the facility. What he was doing in there, I’m not sure. I bet in the fall it is like having central heating in a rent-free condo.
2.) Before sitting, clear the hole of any spider webs. This may or may not be an issue in your area. I remember as a boy sitting down on the seat and doing my business. I thought I had a really persistent klingon. I did the usual flex and wiggle only to be bitten on my then-tender-white booty. Luckily, there are no poisonous spiders in Northern Maine. I was fine over time, but it certainly was uncomfortable for the rest of my stay upta camp.
3.) Find some sort of container for your toilet paper storage. The other part of this is to actually use said container. Nothing is worse than running to the outhouse only to find out that a mouse or squirrel has chewed his way through the roll. If beans have been a regular rotation of camp food, you may be in trouble. The key to finding a toilet paper container is to take into account the issue of opposable thumbs. I’ve seen people use coffee cans on several occasions only to have them fail. The lid is plastic. The can smells interesting to uneducated rodents and they can chew through said plastic. Get something that you need thumbs to open, be it screw top or otherwise.
4.) Know the party that you are with. Machine Gun Dwyer couldn’t hold it until nobody was looking. Here is what happened.
Funny, right? We all thought so. However, if you were focused on wiping and didn’t see the man with the gun approach, you might get poo on your hand. If you were really nervous, you might end up running out the front door with your pants around your ankles. Running and pooping at the same time is possible. I saw it on “Jackass”.
5.) This next part will be controversial and somewhat gross. Take it for what it is worth. My dad never told me he loved me until I was in my 20′s, at which time he told me that he loved me in the third person ( “You know your dad loves you” - much like Bob Dole used to talk about Bob Dole). No big deal. He was a manly man and I always knew that he did, we just never said things like that.
When I was six years old we were staying at camp. It got really cold that night. Probably hit zero. I told Ol’ Snuffy at about 8pm that I needed to have a poop and that I was scared to go to the outhouse by myself. After criticizing me for a minute about how I should never be scared of the woods (he even carried a .357 to church), he walked out the front door of the camp. I saw his Coleman lantern fire up on the back of his truck and he slowly walked through the snow and out to the outhouse.
When he came back into the camp, he didn’t have the lantern. He did, however, have the seat to the outhouse in his mittened hand. He hung it over the stove and let it warm up before I went out to do my business. He left the lantern in the outhouse to act as a heat source as well. Gross as a toilet seat over the wood stove may be, I knew that my dad loved me and I was able to work things out in a warm, somewhat comfortable environment.
Terms:
6.) Pre-Loading: This pertains to the dregs of the outhouse domain; port-a-potties, public toilets and outhouses with the in-ground chemical tanks. There’s nothing worse than having a blow out in a public place that has poor facilities. Actually there is – crapping your pants. I’ve heard people say that they would rather crap their pants than use a public toilet, but 9 times out of 10 it just isn’t true. If you’re in a situation where there happens to be a bio-warfare bomb waiting on deck and you have to use one of these facilities, use the pre-loading method. Why pre-load? Usually if you have waited long enough to have a butt-explosion, there are certain hazards that could occur. What kinds of hazards? SPLASH BACK. Splash back is when the gas velocity of your lower intestine sends poo out of your butt at such a force so it actually pulls a belly-flop inside the chemical tank of a port-a-pot. What happens when you belly flop? Big splash, which could hit you on the backside. Seriously, you don’t want anyone else’s poo touching you, so pre-load. Pre-loading is simple: Take a big bunch of toilet paper and throw it the hole first. If in a public rest room, a paper towel works great. Simply put a barrier between your deuce and the water. It cuts down on splash and protects you from bio-exposure. In my early 20′s I got splash back from a chemical tank. My crack itched for two months and I was too embarrassed to go to the doctor to get it checked.
7.) Butt Gasket: I’m sure you’ve all heard of the butt gasket. The B.G. is simply putting a barrier down between you and the seat. Why? Somebody before you may have been really dirty. Peed on the seat, or worse, they may have left poop crumbs (see next item). Simply put, use toilet paper and layer the seat with it. Sit down and drop your bomb. Nobody likes to hover over a seat. It makes your legs shaky and, frankly, due to the strain you’re putting on your muscles, it makes you grunt worse when leaving your deposit.
Besides, crabs can jump 8 feet, but we aren’t talking about that.
8.) Poop Crumbs: This is a term popularized by Martin Lawrence in the 1990′s. We really should adopt the bidet here in the states. We’re all running around town with dirty backsides. I know what you’re thinking; you wipe well, you’re clean. While I have confidence in your wiping skills, I lack confidence that you can open up you own crack and have a look for quality assurance (pun intended). It really is like saying you cleaned your room with your eyes closed. You’re going to miss something. Poop crumbs are simply the little nuggets of dried poo or toilet paper residue that may be hiding in you turd tent. If you look where the hinges connect the seat to the pot, you’ll see little specks. Those specks are poop crumbs. Beware.
9.) JW Toilet Paper Company (TM): This company must be rolling in it. Money, not poo. The JW TPCo. has been in business ever since I can remember. You can find their products in most public facilities. Simply put, JW is The John Wayne Paper Company. It is rough, tough and takes no crap from anyone. Be careful using it, you could injure yourself. Before Gordie LaBoom ran off and got married, he had the best bachelor pad. He even had a stool set up in his bathroom on which he could perch his laptop whilst dropping a deuce. The point that I’m headed towards is that no man on this earth should ever have to use single ply toilet paper. Gordie had triple-ply quilted TP at his bachelor pad. It was literally like wiping your butt with a cotton blanket. Avoid single ply.
Maybe our next story will be about the time(s) I crapped my pants.
Maybe not.
Pax Domini Sit Semper Vobiscum,
Mike, Oscar, Hotel……out.
Which time you pooped your pants? And I wish we had a video of me throwing a smokebomb at the crapper while you were in it. Even if it bounced back out. Or Machine Gun pooping in the apartment parking lot. Out of all our adventures, how come we always remember the crappy ones?
Hey Mike,
What platform are you going to use for your new online store. Currently my girlfriend and I use ETSY for some of our crafts, but that is probably not the right venue for ax handles and knives etc. Are you just going with your own free-standing site? Just curious as I am not sure that ETSY will be the appropriate place for all the crafts I make as well.
Hey Brian – Conspiracy Carl is actually The Axe's webmaster at this point (sounds kinda S&M, doesn't it?). We brainstorm the ideas together and he knows how to make it happen. So to answer the question – I don't know, Carl is handling it. If I had to guess, it'll be its own website, connected here. I've thought about Etsy myself. Pretty much no matter how you do it, you'll pay some sort of middle man. My hope is to cut the middle man's throat as much as possible and keep prices low. Carl and I are both hardcore capitalists.
Etsy is way too girly for us anyway. If it were called something a bit more masculine, we might think about it.