Before you jump to the conclusion that Pluto Water is either dog pee or a libation bottled on what used to be the outermost planet of our solar system, let me quickly explain that in the early part of the 20th century, this caca-inducing cocktail was America's
laxative of choice. Its tagline was ingenious: "When Nature Won't, Pluto Will." The laxative's popularity continued well into the thirties and forties, which is around the time when my father entered college -- the same college, incidentally, I attended more than a generation later.
My father pledged a fraternity his freshman year, and it was during his initiation when he had his first encounter with Pluto Water. His run-in with Pluto Water was one of many tales he told me a couple of weeks before I matriculated; and because of what my father endured in the spirit of "brotherhood", I was turned off of the entire Greek universe of manic mayhem -- I did not follow in his footsteps and refused to join a fraternity.
My father and his fellow pledges were blindfolded and driven to a remote area far away from campus. Still blindfolded, they were each forced to guzzle a bottle of Pluto Water. Then their blindfolds were finally removed, at which point they were told to find their way on foot back to campus. The active brothers drove away, leaving the pledges to fend for themselves with their systems ticking away like turd time bombs.
Pluto Water takes up to an hour to reach internal gusher status, so my father said it wasn't too bad at first. They were actually able to concentrate, like Hansel and Gretel, on finding their way out of the woods. But eventually the fraternity brother bowel movement came a-knockin' on their back doors, and the results were that my father and his buddies pretty much had to rip down their pants simultaneously and assume the squatting position, spraying their dis-stink-tive signatures in the midst of nature's splendor.
My father said that he remembers it as a rather violent experience all around, with a sudden rush of guts that were probably accompanied by sound effects worthy of today's cheesiest scatological teen movies. Worse still, they had nothing to wipe with except leaves. Maybe some of them even befouled their underwear when they had to get down to the nitty-gritty; but all of them, he said, were walking funny all the way back to campus, bow-legged as cowboys. It took them a good three hours to find their way. Once they returned, of course, the first thing they all did was hit the showers and try to put all the forced bowel bonding out of their minds.
This sort of hazing ritual isn't safe -- imagine if anyone had developed complications from the Pluto Water. Learning how to shit in the woods may or may not be a valuable skill; but if at all possible, I think I would prefer to decide where and when I lose control of my bowels.
(Click the above images for bigger, more readable versions.)
