Welcome to Dumpsville

I have always prided myself in being able to turn crappy situations into positive ones. I was really put to the test with The Rockette a few years back.

I had booked a fantastic two-room suite at a well-known hotel chain as a surprise for The Rockette. At first glance, the suite looked pretty sweet. But things quickly went down the toilet when she went to use the bathroom minutes after arriving.

"Oh. My. God," The Rockette said in a trembling fearful voice. It was a much more frightened tone than the "there's a huge spider in here" voice. This was more like "there's a serial killer in the bathtub" kind of scared. She then let out a shriek. I ran in to help, only to discover a sight far more sinister than I could have ever imagined.

"I lifted up the toilet lid, but instead of a sanitation strip across the seat, I saw that stretched across the water," The Rockette said, pointing to a huge dump in the stool. "It looked like a tree limb. It was so awful I just screamed."

This thing was humongous. Whoever gave birth to that monstrosity must have had a midwife in the bathroom with him to have hot water and towels ready. There's no way the mystery crapper got that brute out without using Lamaze. Afterwards, he probably wished he would have had it removed via emergency C-section.

I called the front desk clerk and told her the situation. She was very unsympathetic to my poop plight.

"I think you need to fix this," I said. "I don't get it. Even Motel 6 leaves the light on for you. This place is higher up the hotel food chain. I'd figure you would at least flush."

The maintenance guy arrived seconds later, plunger in hand. He cheerfully said "I heard you have a problem with your toilet."

"It's not our problem," I assured him. "But whoever was in this room before us has bowel problems of apocalyptic proportions. It's like a chunk of telephone pole. I'm afraid to flush it."

The maintenance guy took a gander in the stool and laughed. He was about to flush it, but I pushed his hand aside. It didn't seem right that he be the hotel's only eye witness. We already had some shit, so why not stir it up a bit? I called the front desk again.

"I'm an easy-going guy and can put up with a lot of crap," I told her. "But this is real crap. And there's a lot of it. If we have to look at this log, I think you should, too."

I didn't stop there. Besides the front desk clerk, I also insisted the maid who cleaned the room, the head housekeeper, and the manager all take a peek at the poop. I also suggested a call be placed to Guiness World Records to record this moment in history.

Two maids were next to arrive at the crime scene. After seeing the fecal annaconda, one maid glared at me and said "Well, I'm not touching it."

"Well, I'm not asking you to be a sewer snake handler, I'm just asking you to clean it up," I said. "I'm sure as hell not going to do it. And here's a pointer: Just because the lid is down, it does not mean the toilet is clean."

The maintenance guy was a big fan of bathroom humor. He kept snickering and giving the maids a hard time which one of them was going to "fish it out."

"If you fish a whopper that big out of water, you would normally hang it on your wall," I said. "But that's bigger than a fish. That shit is like a ship. It probably has a proper name and was christened before making its maiden voyage to bottom of the untidy bowl."

At this point, The Rockette had to leave the room because she was about to burst into laughter. I continued making comparisons to the turd's size, such as Babe Ruth's bat and King Tut's mummified femur. Only the maintenance guy was amused.

The head housekeeper was next to enter the bathroom. He immediately turned into Matlock. He knew better not to demand I bend over for dingleberry DNA analysis. Instead, after looking at the log and asking no questions, he announced to the room that the culprit who did it must have been the guests who were in the room before us because their plane was delayed and they were let back in the room after it was cleaned.

No shit, Sherlock!

"Well, I just can't believe there is no blood trail from the stool out the door, so we'll just have to assume the bad guy got away," I said. "What's important now is not who shit or how to clean it up, but how you will wipe this from our memory."

The maintenance guy took this as his cue to try and flush Nessie back to Loch Sewer. The Louisville Slugger struggled before finally disappearing. But the toilet became instantly plugged.

Then the manager arrived and asked to see the log. Without the real McCoy to look at, he asked for every gory detail. So naturally, I let him have it. When I was finished he knew the color, texture and how many kernels of corn were in it.

The manager offered two free drinks or a free breakfast for the "inconvenience," but he probably offered it so I would quit talking shit to him.

"Well, two drinks would be a start to forget that fancy fencepost," I said. "Breakfast would be good, but that's pretty much free already anyway. Dinner on you would be a great gesture for us to move past that first impression your hotel gave us."

The manager bristled slightly, but quickly agreed to the deal, which ended up having a cash value of $59.

That night, The Rockette and I sat in a dimly lit dining room enjoying steak and shrimp dinners. We clinked our wine glasses together. An older couple sitting near us looked over admiringly until they heard my toast.

"Here's to $59 shits."