The Newt Racing story reminded me of a good old latrine story... it's several small vignettes actually. Vignette and latrine... two words you RARELY see together.
You know by now the whole camping thing.. (if not, read the newt story) it was a GREAT way to spend time over the boring summer and it certainly brought out some interesting ideas for entertainment.
Not mentioned yet is the fact that our loving parents allowed us to run behind the bug fogger man! (well.. not really, - they would say, "Stay away from the bug fogger man" and we would say... "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOh the bug fogger man is driving through the campground? OK, we will." but they didn't get up and chase after us yelling) That is TRULY the reason for my odd brain. It HAS to be... there's no other explanation!
Early years at Lake Welch (this is BEFORE there was a public beach there) were peaceful and buggy and the ONLY bathrooms were good old latrines.. you know the kind.. no flush... no electricity- I think there was a huge pit with a lovely stone building built above it. There was a men's side and a women's side, but they shared the same pit...
There were about 5 buggy, dark stalls on each side (of course we'd seen the inside of the men's room.. come on, it was camp) of the stone building and a whole area with sinks and showers too. On the odd occasion, you'd drop your flashlight down the toilet and there it shined... up from the pit. It was kinda icky.
But hey... if you could see a shining flashlight from either side... hmmmmm... ya know what would be funny....????....
You dig up a rather LARGE rock- one that was not larger than the toilet seat hole, but not so small that it wouldn't make a nice splash... You hide out with your rock in the women's side of the latrine and wait. Wait? For What? You wait for the sound of someone entering a stall on the other side of the building.
You hear the creak of the door... eeeeark. Then you hear the door slam... ka-blam. Then you wait some more... WAIT for WHAT?... Just passing a little time... You align yourself up with the noises... THEN you hoist up your rock and KA-PLUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #@$!#%%^%@$ WHAT THE &&#^&*%$@! WAS THAT????
Can you see it?... Can you feel their pain? Can you hear us laughing?
Scene two: After many summers at the peaceful, rather rural, PRIVATE Lake Welch camping area, we arrived to find that suddenly, there was a new public beach under construction AND several FLUSH TOILETS in the camperground!!!!!
Oh no... how would we fill our evenings??? No more rock dropping?? But- there still was a little fun to be had. Nancy (not quite old enough to hang w/ the teens) noticed that the signs in front of the new FLUSH toilet buildings were loose. If you rocked them a little, they might even come completely loose... why... you could pick those suckers right out of the ground!... so.... you wait... (again with the waiting?)... and a man goes into the men's side... and you wait and hope... a woman goes into the women's side of the building... THEN YOU RUN LIKE A SON OF A GUN, GRAB THE MEN'S SIGN... CARRY IT OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BUILDING... GRAB THE WOMEN'S SIGN... REPLACE IT WITH THE MEN'S SIGN... RUN BACK TO THE MEN'S SIDE AND PUT THE WOMEN'S SIGN THERE.. phew... then you sit and smile nicely and wait.
SOMEONE comes out and almost faints.. they had gone into the WRONG bathroom???? Oh the reactions were priceless...
Again- I guess you had to be there... and you probably had to be 11.