Port-A-Johnology

See, even Dr. Who uses Port-a-Johns every now and again! LOL!

You’ve seen ’em. You’ve probably had the pleasure of using one at some carnival or outdoor festival. If you were lucky, you got to use one at least once a day for work, or, if you’re really priveledged, you get to use them on a regular basis like we do.

Usually, we only get to use the standard Port-A-John, y’know, where you not only get to view your own previous masterpiece, but everyone else’s. The weekenders (the local participants of the faire who don’t have to worry about leaking tents and noisy campgrounds) in Scarborough (a Texas Faire, not a town) disliked the sight of their own excretions and so piled up toilet paper over it. As a result, by the end of the two-day weekend those toilets were literally overflowing with shit, they reeked, and attracted clouds of flies.

You have to understand that the whole purpose of the blue liquid inside the johns is to sanitize all that dirty crap so that the above does not happen. The weekenders didn’t understand that by filling up the toilets with paper not only wasted paper, but created the perfect breeding ground for billions of septic bacteria.

The incident happened again in Colorado, or tried to. To nip this in the bud right away, I wrote a cute, colorful little paragraph about why it was a dumb idea and how the guy camped right behind the porta-johns was “slowly asphixiating on the highly toxic fumes produced by the 8-million bacteria flourishing in your [the offender’s] Toilet Paper Tower.” Of course, due to immaturity, someone built a T.P. tower in that one john the very next day. However, the kids camped behind the toilets were very flattered that someone considered them.

Yes, two kids actually camped behind the port-a-johns at Colorado. At first, we all thought this was a joke on the camp director’s part. At least I did. He really did put them there, telling them it was the last available spot. Well, we all had a giggle over it, then by second weekend, after a couple of prime spots opened up down in the Pit (the heart of the campground, basically), we finally went up and said, “Look, guys, you know you CAN move…?”

The kids said, “Yeah, but we’re gonna stay. The bears won’t go anywhere near us here.”
“Maybe, but after 8 weeks, they’re gonna reek…”
“Nah.” And so it was during the Bear Wars [link to Bear Wars post} no bears disturbed them or tried to rip into their tent.

Then the Faire ceased all port-a-john cleaning one entire week before the last weekend. Thanks to a handful of moronic Rainbow Kids in one incident, the faire’s owner hates us all, most especially the hippies, and that was his first hint that he wanted us gone ASAP. You can’t imagine the horror of those toilets. The clouds of flies that poured from the doors and again when you lifted the lid, like something out of a Shayamalan flick. Not to mention the stench. I can’t believe how I managed to use them the few times I did and DID NOT VOMIT!

As far as keeping the bears away, well, apparently they’d gotten quite used to our reek after 8 weeks, because my boy saw one traipse right past the kids’ tent and past the johns on it’s way out of the camp. Finally a bear decided to check their tent out, going in through one wall and out the other. Then it promptly rained.

Another fun port-a-john incident occured during one of Colorado weather’s little spastic temper tantrums. I was busy holding down tarps and protecting our food from blowing away to notice all the commotion the wind caused down the hill. I hear people shouting down at the taco cookout, but take no note until I hear a crash, another bang and a whole lot of people whooping and cheerin’ and hollerin’. Figuring that someone’s tent went flying and that, after Arizona, I wasn’t missing out on another tent flight, I ran down the hill just in time to miss all of the action.

I asked someone at the cookout what was going on and they explained that the wind blew so hard it knocked the johns over. “It’s a good thing no one was in them,” I said. “That’s the thing! There WAS a girl in them! Soon as the johns hit the ground she came flying out like a ninja, arms and legs flailin’ all over screamin’, ‘NOT ONE DROP! NOT ONE DROP!’ She didn’t get a single speck of shit on her!”

“Yeah, apparently when [the campground director] called the company to let them know about it,” someone else told me later, “the girl on the other end asked, ‘Did it fall forward or backward?’ and he told her and she’s like, ‘Oh, thank God!’ because apparently, if the john falls backwards, the liquid falls into a chamber in the back and nothing gets on you, but if it falls forward, then you get it ALL on you… plus you’re trapped!”

Which is a good thing to keep in mind when pulling college pranks.

Here in Pennsylvania, now, there are, as of yet, no port-a-john’s in the campground. We’re reduced to either digging holes in the woods, risking thorns up our asses, quite literally, or walking all the way into sight to do a #2. In the campgrounds I carry a half roll of toilet paper in my back pocket. Yet, I’m lucky, because they put a brand-new john right next to our booth where I’m at all day.

The johns they’ve got in the faire site are state-of-the-art plastic toilets. The latest thing. They’re built with a bowl to the toilet, with a hole where wastes can slide right down in the collection chamber and nobody has to ever look at them again. Plus, it flushes! You stomp on a large button on the floor and it shoots a spray of blue sanitation liquid into the bowl to wash the wastes away. They’re cleaner and they smell a lot better for a lot longer than the standard model john. We get this the whole show, too, yay!

I hope your john is as nice as mine!

Peace.