Three big poos...

It was a day they still speak of, the ruination of a business and the contamination of a whole village - the day of the three big poos.

It was the August bank holiday weekend of 1979 when I and two friends, Charlie and Burty, ventured to the far North East of our fair country to spend three days under canvas getting drunk.

As is the way with youths we cared nought for personal hygiene nor diet , we had Charlie's very large ridge tent, large enough to stand up in, large enough to run around in, large enough to have a very large circus in, it had once been a scout tent and had housed several dozen small scouts on many many jambouree's, now it belonged to Charlie and was much the worse for wear, lacking a groundsheet of any description we slept on top of bin liners to prevent rising damp, bin liners and a thin sleeping bag were all that saved you from lifelong rheumatism, bin liners, a sleeping bag and lots of beer.

We were pissed for three days, you had to be to stop thinking of your nice warm fluffy bed back home and when we weren't quite so pissed, like early the next morning, we cooked bacon, sausage and beans for food.

Bacon, sausage and beans is all we ate for three days, quite a lot of bacon, sausage and beans actually and although we didn't realise it at the time, none of the food was being expelled but instead rotted in our guts for three days, until the time was right ...

To be fair to us the toilet (singular) on the camp site was pretty rank, but even so...

Monday dawned bright and clear, we took down the awful circus tent, rolled up our very damp sleeping bags and buggered off in the direction of home until, just a few miles down the coast we happened upon Seahouses.

Seahouses, a small fishing harbour, small tea shops gathered around the small fishing harbour, tea shops of the variety that spell themselves "Ye Olde Tea Shoppe", tea shops that are run by quaint little old ladies who home bake everything and make their own doylies for the tables in their spare time.

It was the end of the road for one such quaint little Ye Olde Tea Shoppe that morning.

Because we'd only had a huge breakfast of what was left of the bacon, sausage and beans that morning one of us promoted the idea that a cup of coffee and a nice big slab of the black forest gateaux that we could see through the window of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe would go down a treat, the nomination was seconded and then thirded and the fate of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe was sealed, as were their doors when we left the premises.

After taking a small gingham covered table we were served by one of the little old ladies who was very nice to us, smiled a lot and hoped we'd enjoy her homemade cake but it soon became very apparent that the combination of strong coffee and black forest gateaux has a very loosening effect on a bunged up digestive system and after just a few minutes Charlie excused himself and made a visit to the café’s single toilet.

The toilet appeared to be an afterthought in the cafe as it was a simple wooden structure placed in the corner of the room, a timber frame clad with thin hardboard, it contained the obvious toilet (a pink one) and a small sink for hand washing. It probably sufficed for the usual gentile old lady customers who simply wanted to powder their noses but it was about to receive a severe testing in the next half hour.

Within seconds of closing the small cubicle door behind him we realised that the toilet may as well have been placed right in the centre of the room without the walls and door, for you could hear everything that went on in there, from Charlie shuffling himself around to get in position to the unzipping of his jeans and the slap of flesh against the toilet seat.

A family of four who were sat at a table closest to the toilet cubicle looked at each other with concern and quickened their pace on the pot of tea, toast and jam that was their late breakfast.

Seconds later the air was rent by a rasping fart, followed by a relieving groan, he may as well have been sat there right at the table with us, and of course he had no idea that the toilet cubicle had no means of soundproofing or even rudimentary privacy.

A long agonising “eeeeeuuurgh” followed and a tense silence descended over the Olde Tea Shoppe, then a series of short sharp “eurgh, eeeeeurgh, maaaaaa” and then a deep Ker-splooosh confirmed that Charlie had ejected at least part of the bowel blockage, and a barely whispered “Jesus Christ” was heart felt in the Olde Tea Shoppe as we spectators had been straining along all the way with him.

We heard the toilet roll rattle on its holder and for a few seconds a few of the customers believed that it was all over and they could get on with their mid-morning tea and scones, but Burty and I knew Charlie better than that – rare was the time when Charlie had ever spent less than fifteen minutes on his ablutions - the toilet paper was to wipe his fevered brow in preparation for the next projectile.

This time however he tried a little too hard and after a short “eeeaaaarrgh” we were treated to a thunderous 20 second explosion of pent up gas followed by several smaller follow through parp-parp-parps, then a long period of further straining and grunting during which we could see the thin toilet walls bow outward slightly on either side as he pushed against them for better leverage, changing the angle of attack several times to encourage the obviously oversized bolus to edge closer to its drop into the lavatory bowl.

Looking around the room we could see numerous shocked faces, mums and dads were trying to divert the attention of their kids for whom this was obviously the first overt experience of toilet non-etiquette, some kids giggled behind their hands, others simply looked as shocked as their parents, and when suddenly the smell hit them straight in the face they all flung their hands to cover or frantically waft their noses to move the awful stench on.

And the horror was not finished, Charlie still had no idea that his bodily movements were being amplified to the customers gathered just a few feet from his arse, and after three days of toilet abstinence he was starting to enjoy himself, humming along tunelessly in between strains, gasps and foot stomping.

The first chairs scraped along the floor as an elderly couple arose to leave, having gulped down a whole pot of tea in record time, burning their mouths as they did so, and despite the fact that a small queue of new customers had built up at the door, no-one would come inside to take their place.

They were swiftly followed by a family of four who left most of their late breakfast uneaten on the table and who exited Ye Olde Tea Shoppe with great haste to reconvene at another chintz and camber Ye Olde Tea Shoppe over the road. The two little old ladies behind the counter raised their hands as if to wave or catch their attention, but they were gone and the old ladies mouthed their speechless good-byes to the slamming door.

By this time Burty and I had given up on our pretence that it was perfectly normal practice to eat breakfast in a café whilst a man at the next chair had a huge dump sheltered only by a wooden screen, after the first ker-sploosh we had both glanced over at the counter and smiled and nodded at the old ladies, they being polite had smiled and nodded back, we had raised our mugs of coffee and smiled again at the second ker-sploosh, they had not smiled back, one had glared at us the other, well she was just shocked at the violation of her powder room, they now stood behind the counter perusing their diminishing customer base as yet another family of four made a break for the door following another rasping release of foul smelling gas.

And then it was all over, we heard the toilet roll rattle again, and again, and we heard the toilet seat rock slightly as Charlie stood up, we heard the slight rasp of the toilet paper as he wiped at his arse again and again, his jeans were tugged up and the zip zippered up and then we heard him tell himself with great pride that “ooooh, that was good” and we imagined him looking down at the toilet bowl to inspect his handywork.

He flushed the toilet and for a few seconds we could only hear the thunder of the water as it desperately tried to wash out the pan, then it went quiet again and we heard Charlie mutter “oh bugger” and there was nothing for it but for the whole café to wait as the cistern refilled.

A second flush obviously cleared away the remaining detritus, the lock slide back on the door and Charlie stepped back into the world of the living and made his way to our table, still oblivious of the ruination he had wrought on the two sweet old ladies on what should have been their busiest day of the year.

He sat at the table and leaned forward conspiritously, “I really needed that” he confided, “and I bloody enjoyed every minute of it”, we just nodded as he sipped at his coffee, it was cold and he asked if we wanted another one as he walked across to the counter, the two sweet old ladies stepping back in horror as he approached them...

Todays short story was taken from The Jerrychicken Autobiography web site and was read by yourself, the complete non-condensed version can be found here.