Chapter 1: https://withtwoesses.medium.com/holly-and-her-dusty-pranksters-chapter-1-f4656b418a5c
Chapter 2: https://withtwoesses.medium.com/holly-and-her-dusty-pranksters-chapter-2-c70a642ffc74
Chapter 3: https://withtwoesses.medium.com/holly-and-her-dusty-pranksters-chapter-3-aad87a15dd6f
Blue Room
Holly already had her panties worked halfway off her hips before *BAM* the spring-hinged door slammed shut behind her. Moving as if a world speed record for porta-potty-pissing was at stake, she grabbed a stray toilet paper roll from the ledge, tore off a few sections of 1-ply, gave a cursory wipe to the seat, plopped down, and relaxed the muscles she had been flexing for what felt like an eternity.
“Ahhhhh”, she exhaled, experiencing sweet relief for her swollen bladder.
Holly held her head in her hands and rested her elbows on her knees, trying desperately not to breathe through her nose. She was extra careful to keep her backpack balanced on her feet and her underwear taut just below her calves, lest any of her belongings accidentally come into contact with the moist floor. This was no minor accomplishment, given how little room there was to maneuver in these sewage booths without accidentally brushing up against a filthy surface.
Despite a truly valiant effort at not breathing through her nose, the wicked stench of gallons of human waste snuck in through her mouth, like an infantry regiment stealthily flanking its enemy. In addition to the reek of excrement, her nose detected the sweet smell of chemicals that had been added to the muck in a feeble attempt at masking some of the rancidity.
Holly scanned the inside surroundings of the blue fiberglass room, hunting for something — anything — to distract from her lingering nausea. Beneath a red-lettered “Custer Died For Your Sins” bumper sticker, a large-mouthed funnel jutted out from the wall. Someone — clearly many years prior — had used a sharp blade to carve “CUCK FOVID” into the fiberglass just under the rim of the urinal.
Dozens of multi-colored paper flyers — some hand-drawn, some computer-generated — were taped haphazardly to the door and walls. Postings for adult puppet shows, sunrise yoga classes, pancake breakfasts, spaghetti dinners, deep playa dance parties, even do-it-yourself genitalia decoration booths.
Among them, a familiar leaflet jumped out at Holly
Get Shitfaced with Camp Shitstorm!
Your Profound Presence is hereby formally requested
Wednesday & Friday @ Sunset-ish
Don’t forget your ID, but DO forget your ponsjacks!
If she wasn’t mistaken, Holly had affixed this particular advert to the stall shortly after their arrival on Day 1, during her inaugural porta-potty excursion. When she had asked Polanco where the nearest latrines were, he pointed southwest of camp and replied, “See the blue lights? That’s them.” Then, after a pause, he gestured toward a stack of preprinted postcards and a roll of clear tape. “Oh, and hey Hol’, do you mind taping one of those inside each porta, while you’re there? You’re on Brochure Duty.”
Her boyfriend had — unsurprisingly — emphasized the word “Duty” and made the ‘t’ sound like a ‘d’. “Get it? Brochure DOODIE?” he repeated, for effect.
“Yeah, I get it, ‘Lanco. You’re hilarious.” Holly had deadpanned at her boyfriend’s dadjoke.
Immediately below Shitstorm’s announcement, someone had affixed a sheet of bright purple paper bearing a hand-written poem:
If it came out of your body, It’s allowed in the potty. Same for the one-ply sheets.
All else you have brung,
Even if covered in dung,
Must go back out with you, capisce?Foreign objects combine
To clog up the line,
Which…would be way shittier than a poem that ends without rhyming, don’t you think, so just be a beautiful human and take them with you, okkkk?-Henry Turdsworth Longfellow
Holly chuckled at the literal toilet humor. Next to the poem, a vandal had taken a sharpie directly to the fiberglass wall:
Q: if a group of lions is called a ‘Pride’ and a group of raccoons is a ‘Gaze’, what do you call a group of porta-potties?
A: a ‘Movement’
She rolled her eyes, wondering if maybe Polanco had written that one. A semi-orgasmic wave of fantastic relief washed over her body as the remaining contents of her bladder finally finished draining. She opened her backpack and rooted around for a fresh wet wipe. Holly refused to clean herself with the provided toilet paper; it was so abrasive that even maximum-security prison wardens would be ashamed to stock it for their inmates.
She sifted through the contents of her pack, past two pairs of sunglasses (one broken), the gifted tiara, a thingy of lip balm, a half-full tube of sunscreen, and three emergency tampons: unused and still in their original protective wrappers. Each time she saw them, she was reminded that, no matter how miserable she was at any given moment, it could have been way worse if this desert adventure of theirs had been timed just a week or so later.
She summoned a clean wet wipe from deeper in the pack and swabbed herself thoroughly. Then, mindlessly disobeying the poem she had read just a few seconds prior, Holly let go of the towelette. She immediately realized her mistake, whispered a “Fuck!”, and instinctively glanced down between her legs to watch the wipe descend into the sloshing black-brown-green abyss.
Polanco’s words of encouragement for her from earlier in the week flashed between her ears: “I know the porta-potties are awful, honey. But while you’re in there, just pretend you’re walking a tightrope: keep your eyes straight ahead. And whatever you do, don’t look down!”
Her boyfriend’s sage advice had served her well so far that week, until right that instant when she accidentally caught sight of the horrendous, congested lake of feces and urine and vomit and who-knows-what-else that had been baking in the inescapable heat of the sun all day.
That was all it took to fire up her nausea again. She tried taking deep breaths to force it away, but gulping the putrid, semi- sweet chemicaled air merely made the situation ten times worse. Realizing she was most definitely going to puke now, Holly raced through her options. If she tried directing it straight down, toward the slightly open gap between her legs, she would certainly spray all over herself. She fumbled desperately through her pack in search of a sealable dirty plastic bag, but her abdomen had already begun to convulse, so she couldn’t find one fast enough.
She braced her right arm against the wall and aimed at the gaping maw of the urinal to her right. The entire volume of water she chugged back at camp came gushing out of her mouth, accompanied by some partially-digested chunks from the depths of her digestive tract. She performed some serious contortionist upper torso acrobatics to ensure everything landed safely in the urinal. She paused for breath and moaned audibly before sending the last of her spittle flying directly at ‘FOVID’.
She heard a muffled snicker on the other side of the wall, followed by some loud shushing. A shadow appeared through the sliver of open space at the base of the door, causing Holly to glance at the door handle. In her haste to relieve herself, she had completely forgotten to lock the latch. She shouted “Taken!” and quickly flipped it from Vacant to Occupied. The person’s shadow disintegrated as quickly as it had materialized, causing her to relax momentarily, grateful that this disgusting, comical scene of hers hadn’t been exposed to the outside world by an intruder.
She grabbed another wet wipe to take care of the remnants of retch from the sides of her mouth and then blew her nose into it. Remembering Turdsworth’s poetic plea this time, she placed the barfy wipes in a plastic bag of dirties she had fished from deeper in her pack.
Her head, stomach, and bladder all felt a gazillion times better. Eager as ever to escape the shitpod, Holly sealed the bag of used wipes, slipped the intact pair of sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose, pulled her panties back into place as she stood up, switched the sign to Vacant, muttered a “You got this, Holly” to herself, pre-squinted her eyes in preparation for the punishing sun, and stepped out.
