Pooping Tom

For some reason, port-a-potty articles always seem to circulate quickly around the Web.

Oh, that's right, I do know the reason. It's that port-a-potty stories are hilarious.

This may, in fact, be the freakiest outhouse-gone-wrong article I have ever come across. And fans of this blog will know that I have come across a few.

ALBANY, N.H. -- A man is facing charges after police said they pulled him from a tank under a women's toilet that was filled with human waste.

Police said that Gary Moody, 45, was under a log cabin outhouse off the Kancamagas Highway in Albany.

"You can draw your own conclusions as to the conditions we encountered," said Capt. John Hebert, of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department.

Oh Gary, Gary, Gary. Now, we all have urges. Every mature person on this planet has had, at some time in their life, some bizarre, outrageous, primitive or inappropriate sexual urge. But when your brain is telling you, "we need to get under this portable toilet right now," that's when it's time to step back, take stock of the situation, and to get some help immediately.

Or, failing that, to just pitch yourself off the nearest cliffside. Cause you're in what we in the blogging industry like to call "a downward spiral."

Or you could take Tom Cruise's advice, and start exercizing and taking vitamins. But something, other than actually climbing beneath a port-a-john to spy on females or (worse yet) interact with their, ugh, leavings.

Police said that they got a call from the parents of a teenage girl who said that when she went to use the facilities, she saw Moody's face staring back at her from the hole.

I don't think any monster movie ever made could match the sheer horror of that situation.

Just imagine it...You walk into an isolated, outdoor port-a-potty. It's dark, it's kind of odd and claustrophobic in those vestibules anyway. Plus, of course, there's the dank and the smell. And just as you're pulling your undergarments down and preparing to position your backside on the actual seat, you look down and notice...some creepy guy staring at you from within the toilet.

Those people you sometimes see walking around with streaks of white in their otherwise-colored hair? That's what happened to most of them.

Seriously, guy who directed The Grudge. Keep that in mind for the sequel.

Moody was hosed off before police cuffed him.

"It's a very filthy environment, and before we put anybody in contact with him, we had to decontaminate him," Hebert said. "We treated him as if he were hazardous material."

Only hosing him down? If I were a cop, I wouldn't go near this guy unless there was ammonia in that hose. Ammonia, bleach, formaldehyde, a condensed container of potpourri spray and that pink powder they use for soap in high school bathrooms. Then, maybe, maybe, I'd be willing to stand in the same room with the guy.

Police said they don't know how long Moody was in the tank, but they said the door to it was locked, which means he must have gone in through the toilet. They said they don't know why he was there.

I don't know why, but the fact that he got in through the toilet actually kind of makes this more disgusting. It shouldn't. There's already nothing more disgusting than a guy hanging out in the underbelly of an outhouse, amidst all the human waste. And yet the idea of him crawling, Renton-style, through the toilet apparatus itself kind of makes it worse.

Also, I like that the police threw in the part about not knowing why he was there. It's almost like they feel guilty just by association, as if their part in uncovering this caper reflects poorly on them in some way. (Which, I suppose, it kind of does...I mean, here I am, goofing on them...)

"I mean, yeah, I found the guy in the outhouse, but I don't know why he was there. It ain't like I hang out down there looking for guys. Well, except for that one time..."

"I started this business in 1980, and I have never in my career encountered anybody in this type of situation," Hebert said.

I would hope not! Hebert actually seems surprised it took him 25 years to unlock a port-a-potty and find some smelly dude. I'm, at this point, pretty much counting on never having to experience that living nightmare for the rest of my life. If it ever happens, I will not provide a quote about how odd it is that previously, in my experience, hanging out beneath bathrooms was not a reasonable-sounding activity.

My quote will be more along the lines with, "Now I will need many years of therapy, as a way of getting past my discovery of a man hiding underneath a toilet."

Police charged Moody with criminal trespass, and they said he could face more charges. He is out on bail and due back in court next month.

Hey, politicians, want to make a moral stand on a subject every American is virtually guaranteed to agree on? May I humbly suggest a law against loitering underneath an outhouse, punishable by a $1 million fine or 500 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Something like that. Severe. I can't imagine anyone coming up with a serviceable counter-argument to this sort of legislation, and it's a quick way to weed out the
Gary Moody's of the world before they start popping up in a toilet bowl near your favorite hiking spot.