You know how you think that Boy Scouts would be just a slight cut above their peers? Maybe a little more respectful, a little more clean? I mean, c’mon, the Scout Law is as follows:
A Scout is:
- Trustworthy,
- Loyal,
- Helpful,
- Friendly,
- Courteous,
- Kind,
- Obedient,
- Cheerful,
- Thrifty,
- Brave,
- Clean,
- and Reverent.
Did you see “Clean” on there? Of course you did, ’cause it’s right there between “Brave” and “Reverent”… in the LAW. Yeah, you would think that Scouts would be just a small cut above their peers. You would think that… until you go on a camp-out with them.
I have been on many camp-outs with many different Scouts, and I can say without a doubt that they are filthy little creatures. Oh sure, not all of them. Some of them actually follow the Scout Law… even the “Clean” part. But a large percentage of them are dirty little grime-covered insects. They remind me of cockroaches. Don’t believe me? Go on a Scout camp-out where there is a latrine or port-a-potties and call me a liar.
I went on a Scout camp-out this past weekend. It was the annual tree plant at Fort Robinson. This is a great service project that Long’s Peak Council has been committed to for many years. There was a massive forest fire in this area in 1989. It’s Nebraska, so there wasn’t much forest to begin with. Scouting has tried to help ensure that Nebraska doesn’t turn into a desert. Funny how the “Arbor Day State” has so few trees, isn’t it? Well, that’s a subject for another post.
Now, this was a two-night camp. We arrived Friday evening, set up camp, and went to bed. The next morning, we got up at the butt-crack of dawn (which is the norm on a Scout camp-out). I guess we get up so early to try to teach the boys something. I have no idea what it is we are trying to teach them, but my best guess would be it has something to do with some kind of mental torture. We are trying to break their will and make them pathetic, crabby, miserable little boys before we start building them back up to help them with their self-confidence, turning them into men… or something. It’s kind of like basic training in the military, except for they’re just kids and not really men yet… and we can’t make them drop and give us twenty when they get all kinds of mouthy because they are in a bad mood because we made them get up so early. I know that the early mornings are about the only part of Scout activities that I detest. Well, the early mornings… and the inability to take a healthy poop.
After watching the stupid sunrise while trying to get Scouts out of their tents and making breakfast, we all stumble groggily over to a flag ceremony. We watch a demonstration on how to plant trees. We drive out over a bunch of rutted, washboardie roads to the middle of nowhere, park the cars, and then hike for like a half -mile to get some small trees to plant. With bags of trees and these spades that weigh like 200 pounds, we start hiking and planting trees. Several hours and a moderately severe case of spring sunburn later, we head back to camp for lunch. We mess around most of the afternoon, and then head over to a building for a group supper. By this time, I start to realize that I haven’t pooped since back in Terrytown the previous day. I’ve got yesterday’s supper in me, along with breakfast, lunch and diner from today. I’m starting to feel “the urge”.
Now, Long’s Peak Council has thought of everything. We have port-a-potty galore. There are a ton of those things scattered throughout the designated camping area. Well, maybe Long’s Peak Council hasn’t thought of quite everything. They apparently haven’t thought of the fact that a bunch of mostly 11 to 14-year-old boys are going to make a pretty big mess of every single stinking port-a-potty within hours of setting up camp. Even though port-a-potties have little plastic urinals mounted on the inside, many of the boys are going to pee directly into the pooper; and a large portion of these boys are going to pee all over the seat. These boys should be punished. I want to go to each and every one of these boys’ houses and pee all over their toilet seats. And then I want to make them sit in it… many times… over and over again. I think this is going to be about the only way to break them out of the habit of peeing all over toilet seats. If they are learning it from their fathers, those fathers need to be punished as well. This goes for any boy or man who has ever peed in a public restroom without lifting the seat. Each and every one of you should be forced to clean public restrooms. For every peeing offense, that is one entire restroom you must clean… with a toothbrush… your toothbrush… and then you should be forced to brush your teeth with your toothbrush. Seriously.
I know that you may be thinking to yourself, “I’m never going to poop on this toilet, so who cares if I pee on it?” Well, every person who may be in need of pooping on that toilet cares. Think of someone other than yourself, you smug jerkwad.
Or maybe you’re thinking, “I’m a really good aimer. I can get it all in the toilet bowl without touching the seat!” You are insane. When dealing with something that may touch another man’s (or woman’s) butt, now is not the time for delusions of grandeur. Lift the stinking seat.
Okay, so I have checked out almost every porta-a-potty at the camp. Those without poop or pee all over the seat that are actually clean enough to use are out of toilet paper. Wow, there is still all of tonight and tomorrow morning to go, and they are out of toilet paper. Then I remember that there is actually a heated restroom up by the building where we ate supper. So, I take the hike to the heated restroom and go inside. There is mud and water and (I’m almost positive) pee all over the floor. I immediately want to wash my hands just from touching the door… but both sinks are occupied by young Scouts feverishly washing their hands (a couple of those who obey the Scout Law, I presume) and there are no paper towels in sight. There are two toilets in the restroom, and one has a line going almost out the door. The second is empty with no line. Now, I know that there is something about that second toilet that is keeping everyone else away from it. There is no way all of these Scouts and Scout leaders are standing in line for one toilet if there is a second toilet that is perfectly fine. So I get in line… and I stare at the door to that empty stall.
The person sitting in the first stall is making all kinds of strange noises. There would be a low moan, and then a grunt, and then a little plfft noise. Just a little tiny noise. The younger Scouts in line would giggle. The older Scouts would roll their eyes and elbow the younger Scouts. I was making a mental note to make sure I didn’t moan or grunt when my time arrived. This continued for minute after minute: moan, grunt, plfft… moan, grunt, plfft. The poor dude on the toilet was making little progress, and the audience, once amused at his efforts, was becoming annoyed. Several of the boys were actually squeezing their butt cheeks together with their hands. One of the boys near the front of the line got an awful look on his face. His face got all squinchy, and I heard his stomach rumble. He squeezed his knees together and his hands went to his belly. His whole body tensed, he let out a soft “oh no”, and then he relaxed. His face burned bright red and he refused to meet the eyes of any of the other line-waiters. He slowly slipped past all of us, taking small, calculated steps, and made his way out the door.
No one said a thing. We all just bowed our heads in a moment of silence for the soldier who fell before us.
Not able to take any of this any longer, I went to the second stall. I didn’t care how bad that toilet was, I was bound and determined to…
FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING SACRED AND HOLY!!!
Oh dear sweet Jesus, how could You let something so hideous come into Your creation? The toilet was plugged. No big deal, right? I mean, we’ve all seen plugged toilets. Of course, this isn’t your standard “plugged toilet”. This sucker is filled to the brim with poop and pee and toilet paper. This sucker has been flushed so many times that part of the contents of the toilet bowl have spewed over the side and onto the floor. I quickly realized two things: that I was right about part of the wetness on the floor being pee, and that I was wrong about the brown muck on the floor being mud. With the slight taste of vomit in my mouth, I looked closer. There, sitting on the seat, was a lone pile of poo. It resembled the top of an ice cream cone, perfectly twisted up to a little point on top.
“How in the hell…,” I thought to myself, and then it hit me. Some poor soul had been so desperate that he had tried to use that plugged toilet. In an effort to avoid getting the mess from within the bowl on his hiney, he tried using the “hover method”. The “hover method” is… well, I think you can figure that out on your own. Apparently, he “hovered” just fine, but his aim was a little off. Instead of plopping his goods down into the filthy murk of the bowl, he laid it neatly on the toilet seat, ice-cream-cone-style, for all to see.
I turned from the horror in front of me and walked directly out of the restroom. I went back to camp, crawled in my tent, crawled in my sleeping bag and went to sleep. I dreamed of being chased across inescapably wet floors by monstrous brown ice cream cones. The next morning, we packed up camp and headed home.
Well, here we are now, several days after the camp out. I still haven’t pooped. Apparently, holding that stuff in makes it kind of… I don’t know… compress and back-up or something. It’s kind of neat, ’cause I have hardly any appetite. If I could poop, I’d almost bet that I’ve lost weight! But I haven’t pooped, so I have actually gained weight.
Anyway, back to my original point. Cockroaches are filthy creatures. They eat almost anything, they hide in dark, damp places, and they leave their feces all over the place in disgusting manners. Scouts truly are like cockroaches.
