Several years ago, I was hired by a real estate company to be their Director of Maintenance. Sitting at home in the evening of the day I was hired, I stared at my brand new pager on the end table, wondering if I would be summoned to handle an emergency commensurate with my abilities. I didn't have long to wait. The pager went off. It was in vibrate mode, and it vibrated itself off the table before I could retrieve it. I picked up the infernal device and a phone number shone brightly in the display. I quickly placed the call I would later regret receiving.

The answering service informed me that someone had "gone to the bathroom" in the hallway of one of the apartment buildings my company owned.

I drove to the apartment complex and finally found the maintenance shop and office. Thinking ahead, I rummaged around in the unfamiliar surroundings until I located a long-handled shovel to remove the offending mass.

I walked down the hallway to where I had been told this vile pile of offal was located. I turned the corner in the hallway and gasped as I stared down toward the glistening gack mound on the floor before me. Uh oh! This shovel was definitely not big enough to handle the job at hand.

This pile of shit was five-and-a-half inches in diameter, and a good eighteen inches long. Both ends of this turd were tapered to fine points, and I couldn't help but wonder which end was the beginning and which end was the... you know, the end. I couldn't imagine a dump this big could come out of a human ass; but I guess the taper helped in that regard.

They didn't hire me as Director of Maintenance for nothing. Surely a snow shovel would get the job done. A pair of gloves and a respirator would also be good choices, if I could find them in the unfamiliar shop. I walked back, found gloves and a snow shovel, but no luck on the respirator. The leading edge of the shovel was badly banged up and didn't look up to the job of scraping this turd pile off the hallway floor. I thought a wide putty knife would help to load this mass onto the snow shovel, and I did a little recon in the shop to see if I could come up with one. A gleaming, brand new six-inch putty knife was the reward for my search efforts.

I returned to the scene of dynamic defecation and found two people staring down at it, with looks on their faces similar to what I imagine my own must have looked worn when I first gazed at the Mount Everest of dung. "What you gonna do with that?" they asked in unison.

"Well, as Director of Maintenance, I suppose my duty is to dispose of it; but I don't think I want to add to my problem by trying to flush it down a toilet."

They looked at each other and I could tell they agreed with my assessment of the situation. "That never fit down the toilet, dawg," they added, unnecessarily. "No, five pounds of shit would be asking a lot of a toilet with a four-inch trapway," I murmured.

I figure the person who shit here surmised the same thing, and probably figured this would be easier to clean up than a toilet that overflowed into the three apartments beneath it. Yes sir, mighty neighborly. "Well, at least they didn't piss here, too," I thought to myself. I knelt down next to the stench loaf and immediately realized I was wrong about the pissing part. The carpet was dark blue; upon closer inspection, I found I was kneeling in an even darker area of the carpet, and I was pretty sure my knee was wet. Yep, it was. The only word that would come out of my mouth as I reached for my knee was, "Shit!" And that about summed it up.

"Shee-it!" both onlookers exclaimed, again in unison, and, again, unnecessarily.

I donned the gloves (and wished for the respirator) as I now squatted instead of kneeled before the Object of Massive Proportions (OMP, for short). I put the shovel behind the pile-up and attempted to coax it onto board with the putty knife. "Hmmm, this may go six pounds," I said to myself, watching the putty knife bend with a gallant effort as I rolled the large brown lake trout onto the snow shovel. Turning the pile over exposed a new and fragrant layer to the atmosphere, and my audience politely excused themselves, making a hasty retreat to wherever they had been deterred from in the first place.

I picked up the shovel with the pile of woo on it and realized the putty knife lay on the floor next to where the pile had been. I set down the shovel, picked up the putty knife, and stuck it in the pile of shit. Being the Director of Maintenance, I figured putting it in my pocket was out of the question.

Now, I had a loaf to dispose. At the end of the hallway was a door I was pretty sure led out into the parking lot. So down the hall I went with my "little emergency." Of course someone was coming in the door as I approached; she politely held the door for me, and did a double take when she saw what was on the shovel. "Good Lord! Where did you get that?" she pondered.

"Why, I actually found it in front of apartment 414. It was apparently locked out," was my reply.

"Good thing," she said, obviously thinking of apartments 314, 214 and 114 below, as I had. "Do you work here?" she asked.

"Yes, I do," I answered.

"I'm having a problem with my dishwasher and I wonder if someone could come look at it."

"Ma'am, I've got a full plate, er, shovel right now. Can it wait until tomorrow?"

"Why sure," she said. And then, out of nowhere, she says, "Hey! How 'bout them Cowboys?"

The Cowboys? Fuck the Cowboys, I thought to myself. I'm a Giants fan anyway.

I got out into the parking lot and headed for a fence bordering what looked to me like the edge of a forest. I figured I'd heave the OMP over the fence and be done with my first on-the-job Director of Maintenance-type emergency. When I left my house the sun was out, but of course it was now raining, coming down harder by the minute.

I arrived at the fence, took a good back swing with the shovel, miscalculated the load and the speed to get this thing into orbit over the barrier, and slung it through the fence, which, being of the chain link variety, cut the turd into six still-sizeable pieces. The shit-covered putty knife lay at the base of the fence, so I picked it up with the shovel and slung both items over to join the now six piles of shit -- still OMPs, by the way. Only then did I realize what abutted the fence: the tennis court.

The next day, I called into work and told them they could take the job and cut it up into six pieces and sling it over the fence out back... I quit.

-- Merda