Back in the mid-90's, I held the prestigious job of Cashier at the local Thriftway marketplace. The job seemed ideal at first. It was down the road from the high school I attended, many of my classmates worked there, and since I was a friend of the manager's son, I screwed around a lot and got away with it.

As the years went by, many of my friends got real jobs or went away to college. At the time, I believed college was a waste of time, and that I would do better working hard and making money while my friends were pissing away their money furthering their education. After most of the people around my age left Thriftway, we hired a lot of riff-raff to bag groceries and such. One particular riff-raffer was a man in his mid-40's named Ron.

There was something about Ron that struck me as odd. His face always had a slight reddish or purple tint to it, almost like a skin condition, but it would change by the day like a chameleon. He was a Vietnam Vet, so maybe he was exposed to agent orange or something. He looked like Soda Popinski from the NES game Mike Tyson's Punchout! -- only with the body of Golem from Lord of the Rings. He had a voice like 60-grit sandpaper from decades of smoking cheap menthols. He was quite a sight to be seen. Ron was an alcoholic -- a self-proclaimed alcoholic. He was proud of it, and since I was 19 years old, he was a good hook-up when I needed beer. He often stole NyQuil, Long Island Iced Tea, and cigarettes from the store. He would do things like dropping change by the female cashiers so he could bend over and look up their skirts. He was a shady character, to say the least.

Most of my days were the easy 3pm-7pm shift. This particular day was scheduled to be just one of those days, but turned out to be everything butt.

I had pulled into Thriftway in my '83 Regal just before 3:00. I was walking up to the entrance of the store when one of the bag girls walked out grinning, from ear to ear. She eagerly approached me with, "You'll never believe what Ron did." Knowing Ron, I knew this had to be big. I figured he'd got caught steeling something stupid. Management was just looking for a reason to get rid of the guy.

"Ron shit his pants!" I had to be told twice before I burst out laughing. In fact, I don't think I stopped laughing all day.

I walked into the store to clock in and was greeted with smiles from every co-worker. Everyone knew, and what would normally be a humdrum work environment was transformed into a shelter filled with glee and happiness. Everyone at the front desk was talking and joking about my alcoholic buddy and his store-issued khaki's full of shit. I stood at the front desk, joking with the front-end manager about Ron crapping his pants. Casually, I said, "So I assume Ron is gone for the day."

No. Management told him to go back to his crack motel, clean up, and come back to work.

I got to my register and for the next couple of hours the cashiers and baggage clerks and I laughed it up all at Ron's expense. There was never a better day at the Thrifway marketplace.

Around 5pm, he returned. It was obvious that Vietnam had made Ron one tough son of a bitch -- had it been me, I would've taken my shit-laden pants home, never to return. But Ron didn't care. He needed that money, and his nightly dose of NyQuil.

As Ron walked in, a complete hush fell upon the cashiers and baggers. We went on business as usual, taking care of the customers and such. Since Ron and I got along, he came to my register to bag groceries for my customers. I made it a point not to mention anything about his experience, although the whole time I was choking back my laughter.

Not even five minutes into his return, Ron defined his shamelessness. While he was bagging groceries for a mother and her three kids, he opened up with, "Man you would've been laughing your ass off if you were here earlier." I knew where this was going, but I innocently responded with, "Oh yeah? What happened?"

As Ron proceeded to bag this poor woman's groceries, he began to tell the epic of his alcohol-fueled bowels. "Man, I had an industrial-sized accident." I started ringing the lady's order up as fast as I could. In all good conscious, I couldn't expose her and her children to the forthcoming story. Ron continued. "I was outside collecting shopping carts and as I was pushing a bundle back to the store I had this sudden urge to go to the bathroom." I tried not to seem interested, in hopes that he would hold off his story until my customer and her three children were gone. Of course, it didn't work. It only made Ron raise his raspy voice even louder. Truly shameless.

"So I get the bundle of carts back into the front of the store and I knew it wasn't going to be long, so I went into the men's room over here..." He was even pointing to the bathroom at this point. All the while, I'm still ringing up this poor lady's order. She's feeding an army. Like the true public speaker Ron has now become, he continued, "...and when I got into the bathroom I saw feet behind the stall door. I was like, 'Aww man' because the pressure was getting worse. So I left that one and started heading to the break room to use that bathroom, but I didn't think I was going to make it. Sure enough, halfway down aisle 19 it all gave out, so I just decided to 'Let it go, Let it go, Let it go'."

Those were Ron's exact words. What's even worse is that he sang the last line to the tune of the Christmas song, "Let it Snow."

I couldn't hold it in. I sympathized for this poor woman and her children, but I started laughing. I stifled the laughs as best as I could, but when someone sings a Christmas song about crapping their pants, there's nothing else you can do.

Lucky for this woman, I was done ringing her up, and Ron was almost done bagging her groceries with his shameless shitting hands. I started bagging just to speed up the process and get this poor woman and her children away from Ron. But Ron wasn't done with his epic. He went into describing the sensation. "Oh man, it was nasty. It got all over my pants, went down my legs and even got into my socks and shoes. So I just grabbed a bottle of shampoo off the shelf and told the guys at the front desk that I needed to go home. When they asked why, I told them that I pooped my pants and they let me go." Now I don't know about the shit-cleaning powers of shampoo, but that was Ron's word, and at that point, I couldn't doubt the man. To top it off, Ron had completed bagging the lady's groceries and gave her a "Have a nice day, ma'am" to send her on her way. It was poetry.

The woman didn't go far. She went right up to the front desk to complain to the front-end manager about Ron's behavior. I can't blame her. Who wants someone bagging their groceries while they talk about shitting themselves a few hours prior? You know where his hands have been.

Sure enough, within minutes John, the front-end manager, pulled Ron aside and informed him that he can't be telling his shit stories while he's at work. In fact, they put him outside to gather carts for the rest of his shift that night. He probably needed to air out anyway.

-- Three Ply