Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Everybody Poops

Tom Ricks is a decorated journalist, having won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work with The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. His work focuses primarily on military and national security issues. He is, in short, a serious dude.

If you follow him on Twitter, you know that he's also witty, irreverent, and smart.

Recently, though, he's been full of shit. Or at least some of his journalistic work has been.

Ricks writes a blog at Task & Purpose, a site focused on a broad range of military and veterans' issues. His posts vary widely, from military history to tactics to policy to military-based video games. And of late, shit.

In early September, Ricks launched a contest for his readers, asking for submissions about the most memorable combat craps they'd taken.

There weren't a lot of entries, but the final one was a doozy. In the midst of a firefight with the Viet Cong, a young officer felt nature's call. As he concludes, "Despite all mortal reasons not to, I finally succumbed to the most powerful force on earth—a shit whose time had come."

That's a story worth reading.

So's this one about a dickhead officer who got what had long been coming to him. The kicker: "The door was blown open by the Majah who stumbled out. He was covered from head to toe with a colorful mixture of shit and toilet paper as if he had been tarred and feathered in different material."

In this time where nearly everything seems covered in shit of one form or another, a couple of good old fashioned poop stories seem the kind of mindless crap we all need. Your mileage may vary.


26 comments:

zman said...

Amitabh Bachnan! Amitabh Bachnan!

I remember a time when everything seemed covered in whaleshit.

rootsminer said...

Every once in awhile I catch an olfactory memory of whaleshit. Anyone else experience this?

A good friend of mine once told me a tale of a reviled foreman on a construction job he was working. The foreman had a regular schedule to use the portable lavatory on site, and one day when the crew'd had enough, they hooked the top of the port-a-john to a crane and hoisted it up in the air. He started pounding on the door, demanding they let him down right now, so they did. The foreman emerged enraged and looking like the swamp thing.

TR said...

Not sure if he reads this blog, but Happy 67th Birthday to you, Dave Winfield. Good karma for the Yanks tonight (if you exclude the fact the Yankee owner hired a PI to dig up dirt on him when he was a player).

rob said...

i do not exclude that fact, tr. were this two years later, i might.

TR said...

I will be a bit relieved if Yanks lose tonight b/c the impact of a Yanks-Sox series is brutal. The stress, the sleep deprivation and the couch scotches crush me.

zman said...

I assumed more people would bite on the poop post—everyone has a poop story.

I went to high school with a guy who was a grade-A asshole, at least back then. He was also immense. He played center on our football team and he was good, all state and USA Today All American, he went on to play at Rutgers. So when a guy that big is also a raging asshole, he isn’t much fun to be around and there’s nothing you can do about it. Until he has to take a shit. One summer he was a lifeguard at one of our town pools. It was an above-ground pool (my town was classy like that) so it wasn’t the most robust facility around. There were no bathrooms, only port-a-potties. Eventually this giant literal and figurative dooshnozzle went into one to take a dump and the middle school kids who frequented the pool (who hated him because he was such a giant literal and figurative dooshnozzle) tipped the john over so it landed on the door. All the sewage in the Johnny-on-the-spot sloshed out and onto the lineman and there was no way for him to get out. And it was summertime so it was hot. Some adult(s) eventually saw this and rolled the thing 90 degrees so he could open the hatch. I was not there for this but it is one of the greatest stories in Teaneck lore. The big dope is now deputy mayor, if you can believe that.

TR said...

Is Eckersley wearing a paisley tie? They still sell those?

rootsminer said...

TR, if he's managed to hold onto the mullet for all this time, I imagine he can keep his ties for 30 years too.

Anyone else see Stephen King tweeting about whale shit? Perhaps he read this post?

zman said...

We're really getting after it here lately.

TR said...

Tribe soccer now has six loss in nine matches. Nothing crafty about a 2-6-1 record.

rootsminer said...

Look at TR heating things up with Tribe footy talk!

TR said...

I even got ex-roommate and ex-Tribe soccer player GW to admit Norris needs to get canned. And that guy is perpetually cheery.

Whitney said...

George Wendt?

TR said...

No, but he actually met George Wendt one night at the nearby Blind Tiger Ale House. Honest to God.

rob said...

so it turns out danimal was right. got word tonight that i'm being promoted into a pretty significant new role. i'm a small swinging dick.

Whitney said...

Congrats, Robbie. That’s great news. Swing that little dick.

Whitney said...

Will people think twice about adhering to my desire to have my ashes scattered in the ocean if I die by drowning?

rootsminer said...

Whit, you ok? That was kind of an ominous comment.

Danimal said...

congrats rob, sandbagger. is whit on a cruise right now?

back home from a 5'day'r which had me in Toledo & L.A, polar opposites on the insert any descriptive scale here. visited the home club of a few well-known peeps, including a hockey great, his son-in-law professional golfer who is not known for his acuity but is known for his past (and present) escapades, and a very famous transgender who may or may not have been at the club at time of my visit.

Whitney said...

Sorry, Rootsy. Didn't mean to go all dark. Tough week for the kid but not that tough...

Marls said...

If you drown in booze we can still scatter your ashes in the ocean. If you drown in the ocean we will scatter your ashes at tortuga’s.

zman said...

If he drowns in the ocean do we really need to dredge him up, dry him out, burn him down, and toss him back out into the ocean again? If he's dead in the water then he wound up where he wanted to be.

rob said...

somebody post something. now that i’m kind of a big deal, you jerks need to listen to me.

Whitney said...

Technically speaking, can Rob ever really be a big deal?

Whitney said...

I agree with Zman’s idea. If I’m already dead in the ocean, I’m home free.

Let me be eaten by the fish. They will get drunk from it. And be easier to catch. Thereby helping the fishermen and fisherwomen and the local economy. God I’m selfless.

Mark said...

I’m nowhere near Rob’s status but I did get a raise last week. Mostly because I think upper management was freaked out about my counterpart abruptly leaving without notice. I mean, I knew he was leaving but they were shocked.

Also, nobody feels like following up on Danimal’s nugget re: a certain pro golfer’s “current” escapades?