The house has only one bathroom, and someone was in it, and it wasn't me. Waiting my turn is usually not a problem, but that morning the need was urgent, and waiting was not an option.
Like the Boy Scout I never was, I'm prepared. In a corner of my room, there's an emergency toilet. It's simply a big bucket with a toilet seat on top and a plastic bag inside, so on it I sat, and into it I shat.
Which brings us to yesterday, when the scent of stale cat litter reached me in my recliner, and it was time to dump the litter, not merely scoop it.
Instead of using a new plastic bag, I remembered that the spare toilet had a bag already open and in it. I pulled the bucket out, opened the lid, and poured the cat litter into it, atop my poop from August.
The stink almost made me puke, but I'd expected the stink. What I hadn't expected, and what actually did make me puke a little, was the bugs.
Inside the plastic bag inside the poop bucket, were thousands of small, dead bugs. Some few were crawling on the inside of the plastic bag, but almost all the bugs were resting in peace.
I've tried to figure the science of it. Follow my logic, and maybe you'll need to puke too: At first I figured most of the bugs were dead because, as already noted, the toilet bucket is airtight when the lid is closed — so they'd suffocated. The few still crawling probably would've been dead too, if I'd waited a few more days to open the lid.
But if the bucket is airtight enough that no odor gets out, how did the bugs get in? I didn't and still don't like where the logic led me, but there must've been microscopic bug eggs in my poop. Probably I should wash my hands more often.
Usually my poop is flushed, so I'm unaware of the bug eggs. That particular poop had simply festered, though, allowing an entire society of bugs from inside me to hatch, to live, probably to spawn new generations of bugs, and then most of the bugs had died, all during a month and a half in a plastic bag inside that plastic bucket in my room.
That's disgusting, but also it's fascinating, so why stop now? Instead of taking the poop and kitty litter to the dumpster, I closed the airtight lid and put the bucket back in the corner of my room, to see what happens next.
9/30/2023
Emergency buckets make the world go 'round. I'd like to know exactly what kind of bugs infested yours!
ReplyDeleteThe living ones were gnat size, crawling, but capable of flight, and a few flew around for a while after I startled them.
DeleteThe dead, though, were dried and bizarrely round.
My phone has a camera, but I've been unable for months to transfer those images to my desktop computer for sharing with the world. 'Tis a tragedy.
I think we dodged a bullet on the photo front. I have a weak stomach, and my liver and kidneys aren't exactly on spring break, so I can live with the verbal description. I know it's strictly a scientific inquiry, but thanks.
Deletejtb
Man, if I was one of those always-internet-connected smartphone guys, I'd run pictures of the toilet seat with Dean's hairy cream all over it. So yessir, guess you should thank your lucky stars... :)
DeleteYup, as they say at Goog HQ, f******** ******** ***** ** ******.
Deletejtb
I think you were being melodramatic, but just in case the last comment save one should be put into the subjective mood with a switch from was to were at the 4th word. If my detection apparatus is defective as happens all the time, just ignore this comment and go on celebrating life.
DeleteJohn
I have always been weak on was and were in the 'what if' realm. Even the rule was unknown to me until a few years ago. Now I sorta know the rule, but break it, sometimes on accident but sometimes not. Either way, I deserve every check mark and red-letter correction, thanks.
DeleteIt took me 20 years to get the subjunctive mood. I think it was a combination of learning Spanish and taking a course on Aristotelian logic. In any case, your writing is terrific, and I enjoy reading every entry.
DeleteJohn
Well, thank you sir. I promise to keep getting the subjunctives wrong. :)
DeleteWell, as long as you promise.
Deletejtb
I love the Googs. This is a response to a comment 9 up from here. . .
Delete"crawling, but capable of flight"
I don't think the entry you dropped last week was poetry. I think you intended it to be snippets. But this phrase, as a descriptor of the human condition is so close to poetry it makes me nervous. Were I a poet I would want to come up with that five-word pentahoochie. But you got there first and I was never going to get there.
John
First you were speaking French and kissing my arm, now you're all over my pentahoochie. Am I gonna have to see someone in HR?
DeleteYeah, that page looked stupid with ellipses, stupider with a bunch of very short paragraphs, so I added line breaks instead. I won't argue if someone calls it poetry, because I don't know what poetry is, but you're right, it was never poetry by intent. I wouldn't do that to people I like.
I think you're getting your kissers mixed up with your kissees, but my small point, and I can't help it if I have a small point, is that your writing not infrequently has the flavor of poetry, what the great Philip Morrison called the ring of truth. Necessity is the motherfucker of invention, and I needed a word for a five word poem. I don't think the page looked stupid. I read it as a series of unconnected thoughts, and written language doesn't have an elegant format for that.
DeleteJohn
Philip Morrison? The tobacco guy?
DeleteI love and hope to plagiarize "motherfucker of invention."
What I meant was, the page's layout looked stupid when it was ellipses and short paragraphs. The breaks helped it look less stupid, until anyone read it, but them's the breaks.
Philip Morrison the physicist. Here's my favorite lecture of all time. It's an hour long, so get some drinks and munchies lined up. I've been looking for this video since the Web came online. It was given in 1980, I saw it on NOVA, loved it, and wanted to see it again. Thus began a 43 year search for the video. Nova didn't archive early Nova programs and I couldn't find a video copy in any format when the Web came up. I look once a year, and no video. I found the text, which was great, but you gotta see and hear this guy. Crippled by polio very young, he managed to have a terrific 50 year career as a physicist and lecturer. Then last month, somebody who had VHS recorded it in 1980 put it up on YouTube. My 43 year search was over.
DeleteAnd have a little patience. He's a college lecturer and it takes a while to start connecting the dots, but connect they do.
Termites to Telescopes and the perfect arch. A brilliant man and a brilliant lecturer in his prime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxZAnYjCRD4
John
I shall make this my bedtime story, thanks. :)
DeleteHaving problems getting to sleep, staying asleep, and getting back to sleep are a few of the things people don't tell you about that are associated with aging. I'm eight years ahead of you, and I can rarely get to sleep without my Koss cans on. I used to do it to music, but I've switched over to spoken word, not loud but "just on the edge of hearing" as TMBG says. Like you, I sleep in a recliner, so I listen through my Koss cans. I caught a break when the U.S. copyright laws changed and over half the work of my favorite author, Dashiell Hammett fell into the public domain (95 years after first publication). By 1928, Hammett had been publishing his short stories in magazines, mostly Black Mask, for five years. He exploded in 1923, and went from a relative unknown to Black Mask's leading short story writer. Since at least two of his five novels consist of several of his short stories pasted together, groups of amateur and professional readers have taken it upon themselves to record Hammett's novels and put them on YouTube. Whoever holds copyright on the novels gets them booted off from time to time, but they sneak back on. For a novel, it takes me from 10 to 30 nights to make it all the way through. I'm about 2/3 through Hammett's second best novel, The Thin Man. At the moment, his best novel, Red Harvest, isn't out here, but someone will sneak it on soon. There are several copies (meaning several readers) of The Maltese Falcon, and The Dain Curse comes and goes. I haven't seen The Glass Key out here yet, but it should be coming soon. There's something about Hammett's writing that is both brilliant and relaxing. You might give it a try.
DeleteRemember, no video, just audio. You gotta close your peepers for the sanddude.
John
It worked quite well. It's an hour-long lecture, and I fell asleep midway through. It's something I'd known but forgotten, and definitely you're right that you gotta turn everything else off — audio only. If video is playing, you're as good as awake.
DeleteKinda curious about listening to Hammett, though. On something plotted, I want to listen closely so's I knows what's what and who's who and don't miss a clue. I'll try it, though. At this point I'll try almost anything.
I'm going to start with The Maltese Falcon, because I know the story already, having read the book and seen all the movies. Thanks mon!
strong work. thanks for taking care of that.
ReplyDeleteDo I have tobe the first to say this is unhealthy to say the least?
ReplyDeleteI assume you never read Doug's paper zine, then?
DeleteIt's ordinary for Doug. He delights in being at odds with ordinary hygiene.
DeleteIt ain't necessarily a delight. I just don't care.
DeleteI have searched and learned the word zine. but how is it pertinent to a bucket of infested human and cat waste.
ReplyDeletefuck that's sick
ReplyDeleteyou could die if you let that stay in your room
think what your breathing
I had a woman down in Alabama
DeleteShe was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic
She said, “Boy, without a doubt
Have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic”
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend
BD/jtb
You could die watching the evening "news" - I'll take my chances with the dookie, at least it's real
Delete