blueblood
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2005
- Posts
- 1,082
I posted this 5 yrs ago in a different discussion area but thought with many new members since that time and change in area it might be fun to post again.
Along the Road by Peter Shaffer
Oh, Poo!
Being a ?hip? husband
and a modern-day
man, I chip in and
help with all the chores
around here in our
Fleetwood Discovery
motor home called the BigD. You see,
Sharon does all the driving, and all I
have to do is turn the steering wheel
and push on the accelerator and brake
pedals. Sharon does the cooking and I
clean the dishes; Sharon makes the bed
and I clean the bathroom. You can see
this all works out for the best . . . that is,
until I cleaned the toilet the other day.
For those of you who don?t know
how a modern day human waste disposal
system works in a motor coach,
when it?s time to say bye-bye to the
mess in the toilet, one just depresses
the foot pedal and the ball valve opens
allowing gravity to take over and drop
everything as far as the tank below.
Now, the other day it was time to
clean the toilet and make it a fresh
smelling potty. I had just finished using
the toilet bowl cleaner and brush when
I stepped on the flush pedal sending all
the blue cleaning stuff down and into
the black hole. Being a man (for some
strange reason, men do this more than
women), I naturally looked down the
hole to see where all the stuff goes after
the pedal is pressed. It was so cool to
see the cleaning water hit the stew that
was down below. I was just about to release the foot
pedal when something sailed past my
line of sight and torpedoed itself cleanly
into the hole without touching the porcelain
or the plastic valve. The last time
I saw the phantom missile was when it
penetrated the soup causing a ripple
just as a stone does then you toss one in
a smooth lake.
What was it?
What on earth could
it have been?
The toilet bowl brush, a bath towel that was
hanging above the toilet, could that be
the missile? Then it hit me. My glasses!
Where were my glasses?
Oh, poo! Now I know what the
?missile? was. ?Oh poo, oh poo, oh poo?,
I screamed. ?Ding dong ding dong, ding
dong darn it! Sharon!? I yelled. ?Sharon,
do you know where my glasses are??
I hoped and prayed for the right answer.
?The last time I saw them they
were in your shirt pocket,? was her
response. Not the answer I was looking
for!
I was faced with a problem. What
to do about the foreign object that was
now lying at the bottom of the tank
covered by 3 inches of ?blue stuff.?
Although the glasses cleanly sailed into
the tank without hitting a darn thing, I
wouldn?t be so lucky when it came time
to dump the tank. A crosswise pair of
glasses in a 3-inch discharge pipe would
cause a real smelly problem. So now the
task at hand was to figure out how to
retrieve the sunken glasses, especially
since I can?t see, now that my specks are
lying at the bottom of the cesspool.
My engineering brain started to
work in fast mode. There are only three
ways into the sewer tank: toilet, drain,
and the vent. The drain won?t work for
reasons already stated, and the vent is
only a 1?-inch diameter plastic pipe
opening in the roof. The toilet was the
way in, and it would have to be the way
out.
Doctors have a credo that says ?do
no harm.? Engineers also have a credo.
It says ?anything is possible; it just
takes more time and more money.?
Since money always seems to be in
short supply around here, I had to get
creative. What should I use to retrieve
the glasses? Here I was, camping in a
national forest, 50 miles from the
nearest ?man store,? Home Depot. I was
on my own, with no one to help me.
I thought of using my hand to
reach down there and grab them. But
no, my hands are far too large to fit
through the hole and my arms are too
short to reach the bottom. Sharon?s
hands are small enough to fit through
the opening and she could part the
waters, so to speak, and retrieve them.
Yeah, right, fat chance of that ever happening.
Besides, she probably won?t be
finished laughing at me for at least
another hour or two. The awning pull
pole! Yes, that just may do nicely. Three
feet long, manufactured out of a steel
bar the thickness of a pencil, and it has
a 90-degree bend or hook on one end.
Yeah, that will do nicely.
Fishing for a lightweight pair of
glasses with a 3-foot pole in ?poo?-
lutants the consistency of wet concrete
was not as easy as I thought. First, I
had to convince Sharon to hold the
flashlight and shine it down the hole.
Hard to do when you are still giggling.
Then I had to learn the feel of hooking
onto metal and glass verses floaters and
sinkers. Several times I thought I had
them only to find . . . well, something
other than my wire rims.
But the Shaffer ingenuity prevailed.
My spectacles were hooked and
came up out of the hole. I grabbed them
with my hand before they fell back into
the cauldron, and gave a big whoopee!
Sharon, seeing the glasses in my hand
along with streamers that were still
dangling from them, put her hand over
her mouth, turned and ran from the
room in an attempt to keep supper
down. What a wimp.
I am using the glasses as I type this.
Of course I washed them and soaked
them in bleach for an hour or so. The
smell is almost gone from them now. I
use them for reading, but you won?t
catch me chewing on the ear piece for a
long, long time! ?
Peter and Sharon Shaffer live in Kentucky,
and travel extensively throughout
the U.S. Peter is a retired civil
engineer; Sharon is a retired travel
agent and the driving force behind the
man. The Shaffers recently became
first-time grandparents. Pete says,
?Between Sharon and my faithful GPS,
we never take the wrong road...just the
road less traveled.?
Along the Road by Peter Shaffer
Oh, Poo!
Being a ?hip? husband
and a modern-day
man, I chip in and
help with all the chores
around here in our
Fleetwood Discovery
motor home called the BigD. You see,
Sharon does all the driving, and all I
have to do is turn the steering wheel
and push on the accelerator and brake
pedals. Sharon does the cooking and I
clean the dishes; Sharon makes the bed
and I clean the bathroom. You can see
this all works out for the best . . . that is,
until I cleaned the toilet the other day.
For those of you who don?t know
how a modern day human waste disposal
system works in a motor coach,
when it?s time to say bye-bye to the
mess in the toilet, one just depresses
the foot pedal and the ball valve opens
allowing gravity to take over and drop
everything as far as the tank below.
Now, the other day it was time to
clean the toilet and make it a fresh
smelling potty. I had just finished using
the toilet bowl cleaner and brush when
I stepped on the flush pedal sending all
the blue cleaning stuff down and into
the black hole. Being a man (for some
strange reason, men do this more than
women), I naturally looked down the
hole to see where all the stuff goes after
the pedal is pressed. It was so cool to
see the cleaning water hit the stew that
was down below. I was just about to release the foot
pedal when something sailed past my
line of sight and torpedoed itself cleanly
into the hole without touching the porcelain
or the plastic valve. The last time
I saw the phantom missile was when it
penetrated the soup causing a ripple
just as a stone does then you toss one in
a smooth lake.
What was it?
What on earth could
it have been?
The toilet bowl brush, a bath towel that was
hanging above the toilet, could that be
the missile? Then it hit me. My glasses!
Where were my glasses?
Oh, poo! Now I know what the
?missile? was. ?Oh poo, oh poo, oh poo?,
I screamed. ?Ding dong ding dong, ding
dong darn it! Sharon!? I yelled. ?Sharon,
do you know where my glasses are??
I hoped and prayed for the right answer.
?The last time I saw them they
were in your shirt pocket,? was her
response. Not the answer I was looking
for!
I was faced with a problem. What
to do about the foreign object that was
now lying at the bottom of the tank
covered by 3 inches of ?blue stuff.?
Although the glasses cleanly sailed into
the tank without hitting a darn thing, I
wouldn?t be so lucky when it came time
to dump the tank. A crosswise pair of
glasses in a 3-inch discharge pipe would
cause a real smelly problem. So now the
task at hand was to figure out how to
retrieve the sunken glasses, especially
since I can?t see, now that my specks are
lying at the bottom of the cesspool.
My engineering brain started to
work in fast mode. There are only three
ways into the sewer tank: toilet, drain,
and the vent. The drain won?t work for
reasons already stated, and the vent is
only a 1?-inch diameter plastic pipe
opening in the roof. The toilet was the
way in, and it would have to be the way
out.
Doctors have a credo that says ?do
no harm.? Engineers also have a credo.
It says ?anything is possible; it just
takes more time and more money.?
Since money always seems to be in
short supply around here, I had to get
creative. What should I use to retrieve
the glasses? Here I was, camping in a
national forest, 50 miles from the
nearest ?man store,? Home Depot. I was
on my own, with no one to help me.
I thought of using my hand to
reach down there and grab them. But
no, my hands are far too large to fit
through the hole and my arms are too
short to reach the bottom. Sharon?s
hands are small enough to fit through
the opening and she could part the
waters, so to speak, and retrieve them.
Yeah, right, fat chance of that ever happening.
Besides, she probably won?t be
finished laughing at me for at least
another hour or two. The awning pull
pole! Yes, that just may do nicely. Three
feet long, manufactured out of a steel
bar the thickness of a pencil, and it has
a 90-degree bend or hook on one end.
Yeah, that will do nicely.
Fishing for a lightweight pair of
glasses with a 3-foot pole in ?poo?-
lutants the consistency of wet concrete
was not as easy as I thought. First, I
had to convince Sharon to hold the
flashlight and shine it down the hole.
Hard to do when you are still giggling.
Then I had to learn the feel of hooking
onto metal and glass verses floaters and
sinkers. Several times I thought I had
them only to find . . . well, something
other than my wire rims.
But the Shaffer ingenuity prevailed.
My spectacles were hooked and
came up out of the hole. I grabbed them
with my hand before they fell back into
the cauldron, and gave a big whoopee!
Sharon, seeing the glasses in my hand
along with streamers that were still
dangling from them, put her hand over
her mouth, turned and ran from the
room in an attempt to keep supper
down. What a wimp.
I am using the glasses as I type this.
Of course I washed them and soaked
them in bleach for an hour or so. The
smell is almost gone from them now. I
use them for reading, but you won?t
catch me chewing on the ear piece for a
long, long time! ?
Peter and Sharon Shaffer live in Kentucky,
and travel extensively throughout
the U.S. Peter is a retired civil
engineer; Sharon is a retired travel
agent and the driving force behind the
man. The Shaffers recently became
first-time grandparents. Pete says,
?Between Sharon and my faithful GPS,
we never take the wrong road...just the
road less traveled.?
