Halloween Outhouse Tipping

Halloween Outhouse Tipping

Our FLCAA Writers’ Group was challenged to write a piece about the subject of “Art.” Because I had already written a three-part story on “On the Art of Outhouse Tipping” some years ago, and because I believe firmly in promoting recycling, and because it’s soon Halloween, I decided to recycle the following story.
When I was growing up, acts of vandalism were primarily limited to Halloween and the tradition of tipping over outhouses and throwing a little toilet paper on trees–although since most rural people didn’t buy TP but simply used old Monkey Ward catalogs or the paper saved from the wrapping of peaches bought in crates for fall canning, little of the expensive rolled toilet paper was strewn in the countryside.
My esteemed older brother and his friends were involved in more than one such tipping event, and I have heard similar stories from nearly every community where we’ve lived, so it must have been a sacred tradition–a way for teenage boys to celebrate the “hallowed evening.” Few outhouses exist anymore (resulting in year ’round mischief instead of annual outhouse tipping) so I feel it is my duty to honor the good old days in verse before it is forgotten altogether.

On the Art of Outhouse Tipping – Part I

Quietly they creep through the darkness
Of the hallowed eve, intent on celebration.
Their male elders had kept this sacred tryst
For generations, but tonight is their night
To complete the ancient ritual on their own.

Scarce able to contain their passion,
To hold silence at the rite before them,
Hearts beating wildly,
They hold their breath...

On bended knee, with hands pressed forward,
Sweat-drenched ‘gainst the bulwark,
They strive mightily…

Inside, upon the mercy seat sits enthroned
Tom, the master of the house, butt-naked,
Meditating on why the building rocks
Back and forth,
Back and forth,
Back
Back
Back…

And over!

Part II (the following year)

All year he’d dreamed of this. Awake and asleep he’d plotted and planned, and now the night was upon him--and he couldn’t wait. Leaving a light in the living room and another in the kitchen so they’d think he was still inside the house, Tom slipped out into the darkness and headed down the well-worn path.

“I’ll get ‘em,” he mutters, grinning at the thought of how they’d scamper when from inside the biffy he’d fire the shotgun out the vent, just as they approached to do their mischief. “I’ll get ‘em!”

He hears them coming through the trees, closer, closer. “Just let them get right up to the door. Let them start to push. I’ll hold my fire until the very last moment.”

He thinks back to the days of his youth when he’d led the pack himself. Never got caught, neither. He can’t wait to turn the tables and scare the crap out of a new generation!
Shotgun cocked, he waits…and waits…and waits...

He knows they’re out there. He can hear their snorts and snickers, their sh-sh-shushing of each other. First on one side of the building...then on the other…But never quite close enough.

And now they seem to be retreating into the woods.

“Ding bust it! Guess they chickened out this time. Pantywaists. Guess they musta seen me come out and feared I’d fill ‘em full of lead. Nah, I wouldn’t do that. You gotta have a little fun on Halloween afterall. But it would have been mighty entertainin’ to put a little scare in them just when they were beginnin’ to push. Well, I best be going in. Getting cold out here… What the ding, ding?!!”

Ten hours later Tom hears a pickup pull into the yard. “Tom? You here, Tom? We missed you for coffee, Tom. Folks down to the postoffice wondered where you were. You here, Tom?”
His neighbor is pounding on the screendoor, yelling for him.

Tom tries to answer, but his voice, cracked and chilled by the long overnight in the November cold, is gone–No more than a scratch and a whisper.

The screendoor scr-e-e-e-e-ks open, then slams itself shut as the neighbor enters the house, hallooing, half afraid of what he’ll find.

His wits slowly returning, Tom squeezes the trigger. BAM!

“Tom! You okay, Tom?” The neighbor races out of the house in the direction of the shot.

Silence.

Fumbling in his jacket, Tom searches, fingers half frozen, for more shells. BAM!

“Tom! You in there?”

BAM!

“What the heck is that rope doing tied around your outhouse, Tom? Boys get the best of you last night?”

BAM!

“After all that shootin’, all you’d need is a nice hard rain, Tom, and you’d have a darn good shower facility in your outhouse!”

BAM! BAM!

“Just hold your fire, Tom, I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy. Out of the biffy in a jiffy! How’s that for poetry, Tom?”

BAM!

“Okey-dokey, Tom, come on out now. I've got you untied. Let’s go get us a cup of nice, hot coffee and some of Molly’s pumpkin pie, and then I’ll help you fix your roof.”

Part III – (Another Year Later)

“We’re really going to get old Tom this year! Wasn’t that a gas last Halloween? Jeez, man, he coulda froze right there in the john if my dad hadn’t a drove in the yard and seen the ropes we tied around it. Man! That was a good one!”

“Yeah, but this year’s going to be even better! We’re gonna wait til after midnite and then tip the can onto the toboggan and drag it over to the church and set it right in front of the entry. We’ll put a sign on it and call it ‘Tom’s Temple.’ Hey, man, that’s gonna be great! That’s gonna be great!!”

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Tom’s been praying hard. Praying for a way to make ‘em do penance for last year’s prank. Praying and working. Working and praying. And at last he’s ready.
Gets dark about six o’clock this time of year in Polk County, but they won’t chance it ’til later, Tom’s sure of that. So he sits by the window and reads til ten, then snuffs out the light and waits in his chair by the window, boots on and coat near at hand. This is going to be great! This is going to be great!!

Three hours he waits.

Then, slowly… One by one they creep out of the woods, their pathway clear in the frosty moonlight. Four of them.

Tom presses close to the windowpane, not wanting to miss a minute.

They approach the building from the north, just as he thought they would. They position some sort of drag in front of the door, then move around to the back to start pushing…

Down they go!
One-two-three-four! Down they go!

Down through the snow-covered cross-hatched branches
Disguising the pit no longer topped by the wooden biffy
Now stationed three feet further east.

“Happy Halloween, boys! See you in the mornin'!”