E R N I E ' S   H O U S E   O F   W H O O P A S S

I awoke sweating, my belly grousing like an underpaid stock broker. Thank God the dream was dissipating; sitting on a detonating grogan is not my idea of a restful sleep. Maybe it was the bratwurst I had for supper, maybe it was the way my employers were treating me, I sure as hell didn't want to figure it out. I just wanted to eat something.

Trouble was, I was late for work and it was cold as shit outside. It was one of those January days in East Texas where the wind yowls like a snared coyote and gores your exposed skin like the frozen tusks of a wooly mammoth. I knew I would not last long on the job that day if I did not get my ass out to the drilling site, pronto (my job as a drilling fluids engineer would be toast), and dress in enough layers to keep a fat chick with hypertrichosis warm.

Not only did I *not* have time to dump last night's bratwurst before leaving my crib, I was forced to wolf down the quickest meal within reach. Much as a bull snake inhales a Norway rat, I gobbled down an entire box of Grape Nuts and sour milk in under four minutes. Hell, the damn things tasted pretty good and filled the old pit, so who was I to bitch?

I quickly threw on my jockey shorts and covered my body with a set of thermal underwear. I yanked on a pair of Levi's, a flannel shirt and an old wooly sweater. Then, I eyed my one-piece, thermalized cotton jump-suit, so ruggedized and solid and leak-proof that I could have farted in an elevator full of girl scouts and nary a nose would have wrinkled. I actually had trouble moving, the suit fit so tight over all those layers of clothing.

I trucked the 17 miles out to the drilling rig (they were fighting a blowout) and somehow made it to the mud pits by 6:30 am, where I started taking the mud samples and barking orders to the roughnecks on how much of this and that to mix with to reach the rheology required by the rig's Tool pusher.

By 7:00 that evening, we finally had the blowout under control, circulating through the gas buster without danger of getting our asses fried like a flattened armadillo on I-10 in August. 'Pusher said to go home and get some rest, and I was too tired to make any cracks about it.

Then I felt the first spasm.

My sphincter undulated like a hula girl on Vivarin.

I hopped into my truck and had thoughts of pulling off to the side of the remote, dirt road in the forest, just out of sight of the drilling rig and dumping my load right there. But then I remembered. Just last month I had pulled the same routine, plopping my lunch in mere seconds after stripping my jeans down to my knees and crouching like a golfer eyeing a putt. Shit, my wallet had fallen out of my jeans then and laid there by the steaming pile, unbeknownst to me.

Hours later, I had nervously rushed back to the scene of the crime, only to find my lost wallet missing! It *had* to be there! I made the sheepish visit to the Tool pusher's trailer, where he (to my chagrin) produced my missing wallet with a nod and a wink. God is cruel, folks. I wanted no more of that action.

Like I said, I hopped into my truck and sped the 17 miles back to my crib, my asshole dilating like pupils on acid. I fought like a wounded bear to keep it all in.

Then I remembered my breakfast; the combustible mixture of a box of unchewed Grape Nuts and a quart of sour milk. I prayed to every archangel could think of, and a few demons to boot. Just let me make it onto my porcelain easy chair…just this once!

The dream of the detonating grogan seemed closer now, as I raced in a pained fog up my driveway, through my front door. In my living room, I saw stars as I strained like Arnold Schwarzenegger to pucker my poor ass muscles. I was 30 seconds from my goal, I could make it!

I reached for the zipper of my thermalized jumpsuit and yanked it down my chest. Now, only the tight-fitting shoulders of the suit and a downward jerk of the Levi's and underwear were all that remained between me and nirvana.

Unfortunately, the simple strain of the pulling jumpsuit's shoulders off of my own was the scintilla of effort, the straw, that broke the camel's back. The Hoover Dam that was my sphincter crumbled like a rice cracker, flooding my jockey shorts with a river of gravel. A beaten man, I simply slumped to the floor, sickened and yet warmed by the tepid mess.

After all, it was colder than a witch's tit that day.

-- Jim E.