I had to work the day after Thanksgiving. The office was dead, and I could have taken the day off, too, but I'd already used up all my vacation time for 2002. So I was stuck covering the phones at the reception desk while the receptionist took her breaks.

Around 10:00 AM, the Airborne driver pulled up. I noticed he wasn't our regular driver. Walking in, he called me by name. I didn't recognize him at first until he said his name. It was Wally -- a childhood friend whom I hadn't seen in twenty years. Seeing him again has brought back some memories of our childhood adventures. And you guessed it -- one of them involves shit.

Back in the 70's, Wally and his family lived five houses away from my family and me. We started hanging out when we were in the fourth grade. The summer between seventh and eighth grade, Wally, my younger brother, and I had a sleepover nearly every night, either in my basement or in Wally's backyard tent. Every night consisted of staying up as late as we could; and this led to coming up with pranks and dumb shit to do to keep busy.

One night in my basement, we came up with an idea of taking dumps in boxes and urinating in jars, and saving the feces and piss for "pranks."

Wally's father made a lot of money. Wally was a chubby kid, and we used to tease him that the reason he was fat was because he ate well. And he did. His refrigerator was always stocked with good food and goodies. My mother always made boring, healthy meals. This was the time when Steak-umms [1] were very new. Wally loved them. He ate them everyday. Wally talked about these huge Steak-umm logs he used to squeeze out that smelled like steak. Well, of course this helped fuel our sick plan.

For days we had all been pissing in this big jar whenever we got the urge. We kept it capped up in my backyard. During one of these days Wally feasted on an extra serving or two of Steak-umms in addition to the many his bottomless gut normally ate. I told him not to shit if he felt the urge, but to hold it until that night's sleepover.

The late-night hour of madness finally arrived, and Wally's rectum was ready for work. We were in the basement and we got out the box. Wally pulled down his pants and tried to squat and shit over the box, but that porker couldn't get started. Part of the reason could have been the fact that we were both laughing our fucking asses off. We then came up with an alternative.

Wally took off his pants and got up on this old dining room table. This table had sections, or "leafs," in the middle that come out to make the tabletop smaller or larger. So there was Wally's fat naked ass, propped up in a sitting position on this tabletop with the leaf taken out. By now my brother had joined the fun, and we positioned the box on the floor under Wally's suspected line of fire. After more intense laughter, the turtlehead appeared.

The turtle turned into a snake, and as my brother and I watched in amazement as this thick brown sixteen-inch log hung from Wally's bung. Time stood still and we wondered how long it would get before it dropped. And then it happened: a table leg gave out!

Suddenly the table, Wally's fat ass, and the turd crashed to the floor. Of course this racket woke up my parents, and my father started yelling. Wally hurried to put on his pants over his shit-smeared buttocks, as we feared that my parents might think that we were engaging in some questionable activity.

Fortunately, my parents never did come downstairs. Wally then decided to go home to clean up. We didn't even have any toilet paper downstairs -- we hadn't thought that far ahead. I made Wally take his damaged box and his creation with him.

The next day, Wally, the big jar of urine, and I were sitting around in my backyard, roasting in the hot sun. The cloudy jar of urine, collected over days from three people, seemed to be taking on a life of it's own. And boy did it stink! My younger brother and one of his stupid friends were planning a sleepover in our basement for that night. They were all happy, setting up their sleeping bags in anticipation. Well, of course Wally and I had to come up with a prank; so in stepped the urine.

My brother and his friend went to play, so Wally and I went to work. We took the jar of urine and headed to the basement. We poured the urine all over the floor around their sleeping bags. (I should point out that our basement at the time was totally unfinished -- just cement, two-by-fours, and spiderwebs. I wasn't nutty enough to pour urine on a carpet or anything.) Anyway, the odor from this urine concoction was ten million times more pungent out of the jar, and it started to burn our eyes and nostrils. To this day, about twenty-five years later, I can still remember that odor, and I still get a lump in my throat.

We ran the fuck out of there, panicked about how we would explain this to my dear mother.

We hopped on our bicycles and got the hell out of there to dispose of the rest of the urine, hoping the smell would just disappear. We ended up in an alley behind this neighborhood bar. The place had a side door leading to a basement party room. Since destroying basements were becoming our new specialty, we opened the door, splashed the disgusting urine down the stairs, and booked the fuck out of there.

Upon returning home we found my mother in the basement, washing the floor. She was still gagging, even though I later discovered that the odor made her vomit lunch, breakfast, and anything else she had eating in the last week.

I don't have to say that we didn't have many more sleepovers the rest of that summer.