It was a family weekend camping getaway at Cheha Mountain. As a young kid, eight years old, with two younger brothers, it was a time etched in childhood memories.
We were crawdad fishing in a shallow stream, catching dozens in little time, when I felt the only pains a kid should feel: the grumbling of a child's sphincter getting ready to give birth. As a kid, taking a shit out of sight was something I did with pride -- I wanted privacy.
There were no outhouses. We were in the woods with just a tent and some essentials. Looking around at the dense Southern woods around me, I saw some pines in the distance, down a hill a little ways, for my fifteen minutes of fame. After a gruelling two-minute walk, I found a large log to put my back against and a small tree branch to hang the paper; just like home and very comfortable. I settled in quickly before my small breeches where filled with baby brown crawdads.
After a moment of relief, my second contraction began; and then I felt something underneath my left Dukes of Hazzard shoe vibrating. A small vibration. I quickly moved my shoe, not thinking of the consequences; and suddenly a rush of bees came rushing out.
My breeches around my knees made for a miscalculated run and a bum full of bees.
After a quick moment of the world's fastest pulling-up-of-pants-full-of-bees, I was running from my wrong-doing on top of nature, running and swatting and screaming, bees in my hair, in my pants, in every crevice possible. The family sat looking on, watching me running towards camp, running from myself, swatting myself stupid.
After running into trees head on and running through branches as fast as possible, I literally created a new path for hikers, making the two-minute walk into ten seconds. Luckily my sphincter was so swollen shut that nothing came out to ruin my pants.
My mother nursed me back to health while I sat the rest of the day stiff as a board.
The next day, I took another roll of paper and walked down the dirt road; and right in the middle of the road was my place of safety. It turned out a great farewell gift as well, as the whole family caught a glimpse of my eight-year-old monster, which became just as much the talk of the family as if we had sighted Big Foot's feces, and not that of a boy's.
Needless to say, always look where you poop, no matter how bad you have got to go.
