ABSENT MINDED THOUGHTS

PORTABLE TOILET SHORTAGE?

"Once a toilet has been used on a construction site, you don't want to put it anywhere but a construction site," she said. "You wouldn't take one of those toilets and send it to a wedding." (SOURCE).

There is a lot of truth in that quote that I have used for an opener. In fact I have a great deal of experience (most of it bad) with portable toilets found on construction sites.

I was a Millwright for 19yrs. I had to use those temporary facilities on a number of occasions. I have never been in one that I would consider to be “Martha Stewart” clean, but some are passable. However, those that are passable are rarely found on construction sites (unless they are fresh off the truck).

I can relate a number of bad PortOlet experiences, but I’ll only share two of them with you. It’s not that I mind talking about it, I just figure you have better things to do with your time than to read a detailed list of my 19yrs of PortOlet experiences.

One time involves being called out to a job one early July morning. I had been drinking all day and into the evening of the previous day. I probably had 3hrs sleep when I got the call to go to work.

So, hung-over and feeling like what one might find in a PortOlet, I drug my tired ass into a paper mill in North Florida. The temperature was already in the mid 80s by the time I got to the job site, and was well into the 90s by the time afternoon break had rolled around.

As bad as I was feeling I had naturally skipped breakfast and had only a couple of bites off of a sandwich and a jumbo glass of iced tea for lunch. After returning to work for a few minutes I felt the need to relieve myself of the jumbo tea which I had for lunch.

I made my way to the nearest PortOlet determined to relieve myself, return to work, get the job done, and head to the nearest beer store to self-medicate my aching head.

If the temperature outside is in the mid 90s, one can only imagine what the temperature is inside the confined quarters of a God-awful PortOlet. I knew there would be a rancid odor so I had prepared myself by taking in some good air (if there is such a thing in a paper mill) outside the facility and taking shallow breaths through my mouth inside the facility. This is a time honored method of breathing in such places that has served me well in the past.

I bravely opened the door and began my breathing exercise. Of course, the furnace like condition that hit me in the face as I opened the door was horrendous (but not unexpected). What took me by surprise was the huge, brown, anaconda like, monstrous turd, that was threatening to escape the confines of the small commode! It was as big as my forearm! How it got to such monstrous proportions I will never know, suffice it to say I have never seen anything (from a human source) like it before or since.

Naturally I gasped in surprise, and in so doing, I forgot all about my time-tested method for breathing. I got the smell, the heat, and a visual (that still gives me nightmares on occasion)… all at once! The iced tea I had ingested didn’t have to exit through the urinary tract, it came straight back up.

The next bad experience in a PortOlet happened on a pay day, of all days. I had been working for Milton Wood on a shutdown at the paper mill in Palatka. I had gotten paid and cashed my check at lunch. I was saving for a concert ticket (or something), but I also had to put some money away in the bank back home to cover some upcoming expenses.

So, I went into the PortOlet to answer natures call when I suddenly felt compelled to count and separate my money in the tiny cubical. My main reason for doing this was because it was private, I don’t like flashing my money around people and I had a small amount of privacy in the john.

I opened my wallet and begin to thumb through the tens, twenties, etc., when suddenly a loud knock on the PortOlet door startled me and caused me to loosen my grip on the wallet. With a sickening plop it left my hand and landed in the toilet!

I made a quick mental calculation of the money I had already counted through (about $600), weighed the consequences of possibly contracting Hepatitis (or God knows what) from doing what I knew had to be done, rolled up my shirt sleeve and stuck my hand right in! Surprisingly, my old LEVI’S Velcro surf wallet didn’t sink. My wallet was (for the most part) on top of the mass of toilet paper, turd, and urine.

I hurriedly opened the door nearly hitting the Iron Worker (who was standing outside) with it. He gave me a wide berth as I ran to one of the fire hoses and began to hose off my wallet, hand, and arm. I tried my best not to use that hand for the rest of the day, if it involved ANYTHING that might bring it into contact with my mouth. The rest of the day I smoked my cigs with my left hand, drank my soda at break with my left hand etc. I did this even after I had found some soap in the company break room.

Those are my two, most notable, bad experiences involving PortOlets. The only good thing (in this case good does not mean redeeming) that I have ever found about PortOlets is the graffiti that is left on the walls by shit-house pundit’s the world over.

I leave you with these words of wisdom found on the walls of a PortOlet years ago. I don’t recall which one of the many that I have visited they were in, but you can rest assured that they indeed came from a PortOlet wall…

“He can’t WELD and he can’t FIT
But the PORT-O-LET MAN knows his SHIT!”

Haven’t heard enough about PortOlets today…here’s more

posted by Mrite @ 12:34 PM