Ashley gave me a huge hug and giddily ran out the door. I grabbed my cloth, pulled my step stool over and wiped down the cupboard doors that Ashley had managed to spray. I rinsed off the cloth and put the step stool back and then surveyed the office. Looked awesome. I was certainly due for some chill time. 

I thought of my husband reading on the fishing dock. I looked down at my wet t-shirt. I needed to change out of these clothes that I had been in for over 24 hours now! I certainly looked a rumpled mess! Then I needed to get the kids.

I headed towards the staff balcony to see if I could locate my children. I found them right away sitting on the tops of one of the picnic tables styling the hair of a couple of counselors as several campers and other counselors looked on. Daughter One was teasing Anita’s hair into a large afro and Daughter Two had placed about fifteen small pony tails in Nathan’s hair while my son handed her the elastics. I smiled. Perfect. Looked like I had time to run and change. I turned to leave when Muddy stepped through the balcony door.

“Anne! You are just the person I was looking for!” Muddy had a concerned look on his face.

“What’s up Muddy?”

“We have a bit of an emergency,” he said and my stomach lurched.

“Is it a Code Blue?” I asked thinking the worst. A code blue in the hospital means someone has stopped breathing and, in effect, turned blue. This would be an emergency.

“I would classify it more as a Code Brown,” Muddy responded and returned my gaze with a hangdog look.

“Oh dear.”


I whistled as I stood looking into the toilet bowl in the stall of the campers bathroom. Muddy and Donnie stood behind me with their arms crossed and stern expressions.

“Whoa Nelly. That’s a monster.”

“Do you have any suggestions, Anne?” Donnie asked, concerned. 

“More fiber?” I grimaced as I turned to look over my shoulder. 

“How does that even happen?” Muddy asked in awe.

“The human body is an amazing thing, that’s for sure. The good news is that some little camper is probably feeling a whole lot better.” I shrugged.

I can’t even

“But Anne! This is a plumbing emergency. What do we do with that? That Nerf ball could mess up the whole septic system! Then we would have a load of trouble.”

“Muddy, I don’t know. This really is not part of my duties!”

“Let’s do some brain storming.” Muddy suggested as he paced back and forth.

“We could scoop it out and throw it away. You know, use a bag like you do with your dog?” Donnie suggested. “We could try to chop it up with a knife into smaller pieces so it will flush. We could force it down with the plunger.” Donnie was on a roll down.

“Donnie! No dude! You are out of your element here. Those are crappy ideas.”

“Hey! I thought you wanted us to brain storm! Number one rule of brain storming is ‘There are no dumb ideas’ and number two rule is ‘No criticism’.” Donnie said with a hurt look on his face.

“He’s right you know Muddy.” I said and then we all slipped into silence for a moment. 

“Crappy ideas…” I said quietly and then started to giggle. Donnie and Muddy looked up at me. They both started to smile. 

“Number two…” Donnie said. The three of us then started to chuckle.

“A load of trouble…” I laughed as I pointed to Muddy. 

“Not part of my doodies…” Muddy mimicked me. We started to laugh hysterically. Tears began to stream down my face. My abs ached. 

“OK! OK! Guys! I have an idea. Get some dishwasher soap, put a little in the water, leave it for a few hours to soak with an ‘out of service’ sign on the stall and then try flushing it. Hopefully the water and soap will help it break up.”

“I think that’s all we can do.” Muddy agreed.

“And let’s not make a big stink of this. I don’t want campers embarrassed to poop. That could get ugly.”

“Alrighty then! That’s what we will do. Donnie, can you please go get some dish soap from the kitchen. I will get the ‘out of service’ sign. What are you up to now, Anne?”

“Taking the kids for a swim in the lake.” I grinned mischievously.

The three of us proceeded to bust a gut. Sooooo immature.

Biohazards

…and this is mine