'The Outhouse – A Standing Monument to Country Essence' By Don Clifford

Ed Ledbetter choked on a plug of Copenhagen and dang near swallowed his new store-bought upper plate. In between gasps for air he sputtered, “You want t’do what?”

“I wish to install a flush toilet in my outhouse,” Jake Thatcher said.

You could of heard a duck’s feather fall to the floor. The usual hanger-ons at the Country General Store were rock still, waiting, so as not to miss a word. Even Granpaw “Stoneface” stopped squeaking and held his rocker stiff as a statue.

The color in Ed’s face graduated from eggshell white to flamingo pink, but the more Jake talked the redder Ed got. He thought he was being city-slicked. No one in Catfish Holler knew Jake very well, other than he got tired of racing after the rats in the city and decided to up and chuck the whole thing. He loaded his pretty wife, Thelma, two kids, and a host of family critters, and pointed the station wagon due west. They drove till they got plumb tuckered out.

They’d been here ever since.

Jake was dead serious. “Yessir,” he said. “I believe an outhouse is a great American status symbol for spacious living -- something that we hi-rise apartment dwellers only dream about. I bought Old Man Caruthers’ place because it is one of the few properties around that still had a standing monument to country essence. I don’t mean to wax poetic, boys, but I need to install a flush toilet for the comfort of the wife and kids. I admit I’m new to country ways, so I could use your help.”

Granpaw’s rocker started squeaking again while the conversational buzz swelled like an approaching swarm of bees. Any attempt to keep a straight face was well nigh impossible until Bud Lemming chimed in, “Jake, wouldn’t the flush toilet be more convenient inside the main house instead of the outhouse? After all, winter is coming, and…well, you know.”

That was the straw that burst the bubble. We ricocheted off the counters, rolled on the floor, and grabbed our sides splitting with laughter. Poor ol’ Jake stood dumbfounded. Being a city-boy, he had no inkling of the centuries of progress it took to move the comfort facility from outside to the inside. His face turned redder than Ledbetter’s.

The light dawned. A sudden grin creased Jake’s face, and with a mighty stomp that burped the pickle barrel, he cut loose with a booming laugh that set the smoked hams to swaying in the rafters. We guffawed all the harder; tears rolled down our cheeks. Even Granpaw “Stoneface” cracked his jaws and mumbled something about he thought he heard it all, until now.

From this moment, Jake Thatcher became a good friend. We could always count on him for at least one good laugh, even if the joke was on him. To this day, though, we still wonder what it would be like to have a flush toilet in an outhouse.