As children, Darin and I were both the kind of kids who were never left alone, lest we "get into something." In what may have been 1993, nothing had changed.

Darin and I both lived in Washington state; two Single American Males in our mid-to-late twenties. We were separated by a drive of approximately two and a half hours. We both kept regular work schedules, so we saw each other infrequently. However, Darin and I stayed in regular contact by telephone. So it was not at all unusual when, on an afternoon during the rainy season, the phone rang in my small, rural shack and Darin's voice greeted me with a boisterous, "Good day, my friend!"

The nature of this particular call was that Darin had stumbled upon an interesting dynamic function of his digestive system and wanted me to come up that weekend to experiment with him. He said he had reason to believe that a high concentration of grape Kool-Aid in one's system might cause one's stool to become purple. Excellent.

That Friday night I drove to Bellevue, to try to poop purple with my friend Darin. This is our story.

That night Darin and I went to the local QFC grocery and bought copious loads of unsweetened grape Kool-Aid packets. The next morning, we began to imbibe. I have no clear recollection of exactly how much Kool-Aid we prepared. As I recall, however, we augmented the regular recipe to allow for ten times the normal amount of Kool-Aid powder. And I do remember that it did not taste good. It was not so nasty as to be allowed to stand in the way of science, however; thus, we had little trouble swallowing our magic potion.

Here it might be useful to pause and relate some pertinent information about my friend Darin; specifically, about Darin's digestive system. Darin poops differently from most people.

Darin's bowel movements differ from yours and mine in two elemental areas: a) their size and b) their constitution. To speak to the first area, I would like to point out that Darin is a floor covering installer by trade. Often he is called upon to install carpet into new homes which are structurally incomplete -- that is, they may not yet have certain fixtures and, occasionally, no running water.

Now, carpet installers, for those of you who may not know, eat a lot of difficult food. By "difficult," I mean difficult to digest -- lots of burritos and corndogs. With that information having been imparted, one can begin to appreciate the scope and scale of Darin's condition when one learns of "the cobra."

"The cobra" refers to a particular bowel movement, exclusive to my friend Darin, that often follows his "difficult" meals, and often appears in these homes without plumbing. Imagine: Darin is working in a new house. He needs to poop, but there's no water to flush with. So he goes in the bathroom and sits on the bowl. Darin's excrement is of such length and consistency that it coils itself around and around inside the commode, not breaking off until Darin stands and the turd snaps at the anus under its own weight. When Darin closes the lid on his creation, it whacks the end of the turd flat so that, with its coils, the whole thing resembles a cobra, poised to strike.

The other noteworthy item about Darin's stool is that it looks more like food than poop. For whatever reason, Darin's food doesn't get broken down like yours and mine. Often you can recognize not only corn, but cereal, macaroni, and more.

I mention these facts only because they will help you orient yourself within the following situation.

As I said, it was the rainy season, and Darin and I thought it might be useful to agitate our systems by driving his large Ford Bronco through the stumps and bumps and muddied fields of Bellevue. We raced around in the mud for a little while, laughing and yelling and digesting, when Darin suddenly stopped, shut the motor off, and said, "Ready?"

I was. We each jumped out and, separated from one another's view by the Ford Bronco, squatted and stiffened -- in the name of science, don't forget. Moments into my poop, I became aware of a strange sound coming from Darin's side of the truck: "Oooooooo."

It was a sound such as a young tattle-tale might make upon witnessing the breaking of a window, reckoning the impending trouble that awaits the window-breaker: "Oooooooooo."

It was a sound such as if the last syllable of the word "kangaroo" were held for sixty or seventy seconds: "Ooooooooooooo."

I thought little of the sound though, as I had business of my own to attend to. Still, it did persist: "Ooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooo..."

In a few seconds, I was done. (I'm fast.) I looked down to see what I had produced, and was a little disappointed to find an unimpressive 8 inch cigar-shaped dookie. Unimpressive, except for its glorious color -- a bluish-green seen most commonly in the manufacture of rubber raincoats.

And I could still hear the sound: "Ooooooo ooooooooooo ooooooooooooooo..."

When I stood up, I realized that we had but a single roll of toilet tissue and that Darin had it on the other side of the truck. It was far too muddy to risk throwing it over, so I began to make my way around the Ford Bronco to where Darin was pooping, and making that mysterious noise.

There are moments in a man's life that can change him for all of time. Often these occasions are so affecting because the very nature of human interaction is altered. Extreme horror, passionate love, intense emotion -- people who share these moments of sensory overload are changed forever.

And when I came around the front of the Ford Bronco, and saw Darin and his Blue Poop, I experienced one of these moments.

Darin was hanging out the door of his truck. His feet were on the running board, and he held a corner of the doorframe in either hand to keep from falling backward. His pants were below his knees, and his feet were as far apart as the unfastened waist of his Levi's would permit. His backside was strained out behind him as far as it would go, and he was waving it madly in many directions, in the manner of a dog rolling in the grass -- it appeared as if he were a giant marionette whose master was frantically trying to get him untangled without stopping the show.

And what a show! Darin's eyes were wide as he watched intently between his knees, and his mouth formed a soft "o" as he uttered his unending, undulating howl. His butt was about two feet from the mud, and extending that entire distance, whipping madly in all directions, was a long rope of bright baby blue feces.

I could not believe my eyes. I began laughing, and when I did, Darin began laughing too. As he did so, he lost his concentration, and his rope broke, falling to the ground in an impossible tangle.

Since that day, Darin and I have recounted these events for numerous audiences. One evening, upon hearing of Darin's peculiar manner of expulsion, an astute audience member inquired into his intent. Why had he been writhing about as he expelled the blue feces?

Darin's answer, of course, is what makes this story such an inspirational tale to tell.

He answered, "I was tryin' to write my name."

-- Clyde