Porta-potty: Locked and Loaded

Today was one of those days. You would think that maybe the gods would have let me pass unfettered, but sadly they seemed to have thought I needed to learn of hubris when they locked me into a porta-potty. Yes. Porta. Potty. Of the kind that is permanently placed at a certain trailhead off exit 45 on I-90 and named, ironically enough, for an Ira Spring, an avid photographer, who single-handedly helped to put trails in Washington quite literally on the map. I do not think it was Ira’s intent that I get locked into a porta-potty but nonetheless I did. There were some folks on the outside kind enough to state the obvious by quipping, “I am glad it is not me” as if me or anyone anywhere in this world is interested and frankly jonesing [sic] to get a few hours or even minutes locked away in a porta-potty with a large tank of human “remains” with only a crappy plastic toilet and hole in the floor to separate them. Thanks, whoever-you-were. But my favorite “helping elf” may have been the thankless bravado of one person who told my friend to “get out of the way and I will show how it is done” and then proceeded to basically shake with delusional veracity the crap out of the door for 30 seconds. I was impressed. Truly and deeply. At some point my friend and I thought to try and use credit cards to get the door latch to open. But credit cards were too big. But not too big, and ironic as it is, was my GameStop membership card that fit perfectly into the latch: so goes my video-gamer cred.

Epilogue. Yes, just as I freed myself and as obvious as it was to everyone that I had just emerged from the porta-potty after being trapped inside, the wife of ever-so-manly-and-shake-it-till-it-opens-stuck-porta-potty-man went inside. Yes; she entered the porta-potty, and as only fate can have it, closed it behind her. And like every good samaritan, after I kindly but firmly got her husband from shaking the door with his still delusional veracity, I slid my GameStop membership under the door and explained to her what to do.

See pictures of Mason Lake (sans porta-potty).

Author: Ward

I’m the creator and operator of this little corner of the internets, writing on all things related to art and more specifically my experiences trying to figure this whole thing out. I guess I’m trying to figure out life, too, but mostly I just post about art here. View all posts by Ward