So I was doing my long run around 5:30am yesterday to beat the heat. The day before, a village on my Route had their annual festival. Fortunately for me, the porta potties were still in place. I noticed people with blowers picking up trash but didn’t think of anything else. Imagine my surprise when I heard the porta potty just two down from the one I was using being hoisted on to a truck, I don’t recall anyone knocking on the door before hand. Thankfully, I lived to run another day.
Buy a lotto ticket, they could have started on your end.
CS
A lawyer I know has a great war story about defending a claim against a concert promoter brought by passed out concert goer who fell out of a porta potty that was being lifted onto a truck. He calls it the “shittyist case he’s ever handled.”
That’s scary, but there are worse case scenarios:
- looking down and having your sunglasses fall in
- snake
- porto-john getting knocked over
- no paper
.
at the NYC tri Sunday morning i looked down and thought somebody’d dropped a prosthetic arm or perhaps an enormous kielbasa down inside, then i realized the reason why this particular portajohn had been occupied for so long and why the guy who left it was limping as he walked away.
Few things are as terrifying as being in a porta-john that is off balance and rocks slightly as you’re trying to umm…concentrate.
Before my first Sprint tri a few year back, I had to “unleash the hounds.”
It was still dark out and I had to wait inline for about 30 minutes. When I get in, I could barely see. I wiped what looked like water off of the seat. Nope, it was not water. Someone had missed the hole and shot ass spackle all over the back of the seat.
I figured I would just hover and get out as fast as possible. It took me longer than I was planning and I ended up having to sit down. I sat as far to the front of the seat as possible (A true FIST position).
When I was finally ready to drop off the kids, my own explosion caused the water in the bowl to splash all over me. I almost puked. I was wearing a t-shirt before I got suited up and that t-shirt was sent straight to the landfill.
Man, I couldn’t wait to get into the ocean. It made any fear that I had of an open water ocean swim completely disappear.
Now my transition bag always contains a flashlight, a roll of TP and several baby wipes.
At a running race a couple of years ago a gust of wind hit the row of Porta Potties and blew one over with the door facing down. There weren’t any people in line so I was pretty sure it was empty but walked over and listened for any yelling or banging from inside. Can you imagine being stuck in there with the door trapped against the ground and the bottom still stuck between the Porta Potty on either side? No way to get out or rock it over onto its side, that would be a bad spot.
How could anyone NOT click on this thread?
OMG - sad, but true - I clicked!
At a running race a couple of years ago a gust of wind hit the row of Porta Potties and blew one over with the door facing down. There weren’t any people in line so I was pretty sure it was empty but walked over and listened for any yelling or banging from inside. Can you imagine being stuck in there with the door trapped against the ground and the bottom still stuck between the Porta Potty on either side? No way to get out or rock it over onto its side, that would be a bad spot.
Those were the way you knocked them over in the old college prank days…
Or at Preakness.
I was at an outdoor concert many years ago. There was a whole line of porta-lets near the fence. People were climbing over the fence, onto the porta-lets, and into the event. Eventually, enough people were on top, that the whole row tipped over, door down. Given the event, I’m sure there were a lot of people having a very bad trip.
There’s a porta-let near me that I occasionally stop in during long runs. Sign on the door say “Capacity 10 workers”! I know what they are trying to say, but I just imagine 10 construction workers trying to get in at the same time.
V
Dude are you trying to get me fired???
I am at working laughing my a$$ off at your “shot ass spackle” comment.
Hilarious!!!
one of the best posts I’ve read in a while. thank you for the morning laugh.
Sometimes you wish Porta Johns where stationed randomly everywhere. Otherwise random images, that you want to forget, seem to play their way into your mind.
My wife and I were driving to dinner the other night through the Highlands in Atlanta(somewhat nice yuppie area) and we come around a corner to see one homeless person playing lookout for another as she sits on a break wall along the sidewalk taking a dump into someone’s yard. The priceless moment was watching a young female runner coming the other way realize what was going on and make and immediate dash across the street behind our car.