I THINK YOU SHOULD READ A DIFFERENT BLOG!!!!
I don’t really know how much I give away about myself in the blogs I write. I don’t know if you think I’m crazy, a jerk, weird, or really stupid…but you might after reading this. So I feel that it is necessary to give you formal warning, a disclaimer if you will- NOT to continue reading this. I mean it! This is possibly the weirdest compilation of thoughts I have ever strung together. The randomness of my brain is finally escaping into the blogging realm. Although I am quite comfortable knowing I’m going a little crazy, you may feel awkward as you read. So, I must formally request you spare yourself my insanity and skip to someone else’s happier thoughts on life and the Race. For those of you like my mom, who won’t heed my honest pleading, I warned you…….
Don’t do it…….
The other day I found myself, as I often do, trying to ignore the stench of yet another “Crap hole room.”
“Why crap hole, Nick?” You may be asking. “There are plenty of other much cleaner sounding words for you to use.”
And I would have to whole heartedly agree with you. The only problem there is the implication those names carry. For instance, “Bathroom” implies cleanliness with the word bath. “Toilet”, as much of the world calls them, implies falsely that there is something for you to sit on, and the term “squatty potty” has become to broad a word for my own tastes, I’ll explain that in detail later. Anyway, I was talking of trying to ignore the smell, which is surprisingly different and still awful in every place you go, while also trying to overcome the fears I still have surrounding the hole.
“Fears?” You say!
Yes, fears.
Ok, these things aren’t like you standard outhouses with holes that are narrow and only a few feet deep that will simply be covered with dirt once their halfway full and the outhouse moved to cover another hole. No. These are permanent structures with holes deep enough for their contents to decompose long before they reach the surface…..Yeah I know thats gross. Get over it!! I’m the one doing the number 2 over a small hole, which covers a twenty-foot deep pit, filled with things I dare not imagine or mention. I’m the one who constantly deals with thought of falling in! The concrete lid (or whatever they call it) covering the hole isn’t exactly indestructible. The smallest earthquake while I’m deuceing could result in a poo-juice bath in a pit that might as well be the lake of freaking fire.
I know I’m ranting again.
So, I go in fighting the smell, fighting the fear. Because when you got to go, you make it happen. When what do I find? Yet another squatty design.
“Oh great, more gross details”
Hey! You don’t have to read this! My mom will and she’ll probably laugh hysterically, too.
It constantly surprises me when I find another person’s ingenuity show through in their crap hole design. It’s like reinventing the wheel, only much less interesting. As I tried to figure out how to use this one, which was a particularly odd design, I caught myself picturing an exhibition type deal like we have in the states for boats and guns, only this one is for squatty design and designers. “Check out the new square hole design over in the “Geometry Matters Exhibit.” You’ll miss the mark less with their new square hole design.” An announcer’s voice echoed out of my imagination, as I stood there quite confused. Letting the thought run wild, I went on to picture primary school students at a science fair setting showing off their designs to improve squatty use. “Stacy wins best in show with her ingenious rectangle design. Proven effective as an easy target and safe for infants with its narrow opening.” Another voice spoke to crowd of cheering parents and bitter looking science nerds. “Crap” I thought out loud. “How does this work?” I honestly had to open the door again to get a better look in the light and try to figure out how this was supposed to work. It had the standard “bricks next to hole for you to stand on” design. Which was of course the craze at the 2007 Squatty Design Expo. I heard another announcer ranting about how the future would never be the same and blah blah. I have no idea why they are there. I guess at some point in the last ten years or so and African inventor made it to the States, where he experienced first hand the awesome feeling of authority and power one gets whilst sitting on their “Throne.” So rather than using the “chair with a hole in it sitting over the hole” design widely used in south America and parts of Asia. He sought his own method for getting the feeling that comes with sitting high while doing you business. Dropping two bricks next to his hole, he was satisfied with the height he had gained. Unaware (I hope) that he would later make a balance-lacking, awkwardly tall American even more anxious and worried about falling over every time he had to use it. I wonder if he pictured a tall klutz falling over while trying to use it. I wonder if it made him laugh or ask God “What have I done?!” Or if he considered removing them from next to his sorta circle hole- square holes hadn’t been invented yet, obviously.
I am now quite used to seeing the bricks since coming to Kenya, They are not yet in Uganda since they are around 10 years behind Kenya in the Squatty Arms Race. Still, in three weeks I have managed to get somewhat used to it. What surprised me about this one was what it had in front of it, or behind. I’m not sure which way you were intended to face, I’m assuming the door? The bricks extended out past the hole and sloped gradually up to a flat top. The space between them held a troth/water slide that lead down to the hole. Weird. Then, as if I wasn’t going to be confused enough, the right sides bricks were up against the wall. Which would solve all my balance problems, but…..ew. I don’t want to touch the wall of a crap hole room, let alone lean against it..
If you managed to finish this and think that it’s as weird and random as I do, sorry. I’m odd. I know. God made me this way.
