Once upon a time I was in the Navy and one day I was faced with a circumstance so horrific I believe it will haunt me until the end of days…
It all began down in the ship’s print shop home to the lithography equipment onboard. A good deal of any sailor’s job is maintaining their equipment and I was no exception. I don’t remember if I was down there monkeying with the paper cutter or the wire stitcher that day, but it was some damn piece of junk I maintained more often than I actually used.
What maintenance issues were about to become the least of my concern. I made my way back to our office to report to my supervisor that my work was done and I was going home. Upon my arrival however he was nowhere to be found. There was something waiting for me though. A noxious aroma that initially I could not identify.
A few minutes passed and a co-worker showed up, we began discussing the mystery odor. Before I continue a little background on ship life for the uninitiated. Strange smells are not unusual on a ship. At any given time any number of individuals are performing any number of jobs. Some of these jobs involve using chemicals like paint, adhesives, cleaning agents, et cetera.
Around this time I noticed the door to a closet in our office was closed, but this wasn’t really out of the ordinary. However, it was also around this time I started to think that the loathsome odor might be shit.
Once I formed the shit hypothesis my imagination really started running wild. My first thought was my boss had killed himself. I had heard people void their bowels upon death, and it wasn’t beyond belief that my boss had done so. His life was a mess. It seemed like everyday he had a new sob story. He was dating some hag with a whole litter of children who were bleeding him dry financially. Letters of indebtedness in his name showed up at work, and with little or no provocation he was only to happy to share tales of his crappy childhood.
With much trepidation I eventually worked up the nerve to check that door and found it locked. I thought my fear was confirmed until I heard an incomprehensible mumbling from the other side. A wave of relief came over me because I wasn’t going to be the one to discover a turd-adorned corpse.
I sat down and waited for him to finish up whatever it was he was doing, and moments later he emerged. He had a look on his face like he just walked in on his parents making the beast with two backs, and in his hands was a bag of trash.
At this moment I knew something was wrong because this lout never took his own trash out. I didn’t comment at the time because I knew something was up but didn’t want to confirm my suspicions.
Suddenly our co-worker returned and it was the moment of truth.
“Well I just shit in the garbage can. I wasn’t feeling good and I have to go,” he exclaimed.
Have any of you ever had a moment where you were right but wish you hadn’t been? Well this was mine.
The Human Zoo 