Sample Chapter From Future Book

Just a note: I just wrote this chapter today for a book I've been writing about random events from growing up in Sac City Iowa. I started this project a couple years back doing small occasional essays for thesacnews.com back when it was a fledgling organization on myspace. Eventually I discontinued it from public view, started and stopped writing on it repeatedly. Have been editing some, and am preparing to start submitting to literary agents for representation in the hopes of getting a book published. So for those of you who used to follow the series, and those of you who are just curious, please enjoy one of my latests essays.

Urination and Lifesavers


Let’s just face facts right off the bat here. Boys find potty humor of all sorts funny. Well, basically we find anything the body can excrete highly interesting and amusing. Its funny when we do it, say it, read it, or write it. Snot, poop, pee, farts, blood. It’s all fair game to our strange sense of humor. We may be absolutely disgusted to the core when someone lets a nasty fart rip, and yet still amused. VERY amused. When someone steps in dog poop, again we are disgusted by it, especially if we are the ones to step in it, and yet we can’t help but laugh our heads off about it, especially when it’s someone else stepping in it. For the next couple short anecdotes, if you are a girl or highly sensitive to disgusting things, I’d suggest you skip this next part altogether because it gets pretty bad. What’s it all about? In one word, Pee.
Little boys and dogs are more alike than different. Dogs will wander about the neighborhood lifting a leg and peeing on everything in sight that they find to be valuable real estate. Growing up in Sac City, I knew a particular young boy we’ll call Miah, who acted just like this. Although to be honest, I don’t think he cared about the real estate he was marking. When he decided he had to go pee, he just went pee. On a bush, a fire hydrant, the sidewalk, on the tires of a parked car, on a moving car for that matter, your leg, his own leg, behind a tree, next to a tree, from up in a tree, or on your house, your cat, or your dog; you name it, Miah peed on it at least once. I think that if Miah found himself in the midst of a busy intersection and felt the need to go pee, even if it meant being squished by a semi truck, he was going to whip it out and go pee RIGHT there and RIGHT now. I’m pretty sure the only thing safe from getting peed on by Miah was an actual toilet. I don’t know if he had an allergy to porcelain or an affinity for peeing on everything else, but like a dog, he marked his territory wherever we went.
Little boys and packs of dogs also have something in common. There must be in any pack, an established Alpha male. One day while playing in the ravine with my friend Sonny, he was standing on the wall while I was below on the ground. I was busying myself with something or another when he called my name. I looked up in just in time to see a golden stream headed in my direction. An as though I was paralyzed I stood there while my t-shirt got soaked with Sonny’s pee. Clearly Sonny had established himself as the alpha male. He got in trouble as I did what any good young fighting warrior of a boy would do- I tattled to my mom. And while he was in trouble and stuck sitting on the couch until his mom came to pick him up, he still had a stupid grin on his face knowing he had marked me as his territory, and himself as the top dog.
Now everyone knows that dogs love to chase mail carriers. In Sac City we had one particular mail carrier that handed out lifesavers to the kids. Any kid who asked received a tasty fruity Lifesaver once a day. I managed to find out that by helping the mailman deliver mail to some of the houses on one side of the street while he walked down the other earned me one more Lifesaver for every stop back to the mail truck. On days when I was bored, I would spend a couple hours with the mailman, earning my lifesavers. My mom, realizing how much of his candy I was consuming, always made sure to buy him a big box of Lifesavers every Christmas just so other kids could have some as well.
One day, my best friend Jed and his little brother Miah caught me in the middle of doing important mail delivery. They wanted to play, but I blew them off, saying I would come over after I was done following the mailman around. When I finished I grabbed my sister and went over to where my friends were hanging out. Since I had blown them off they hatched a very evil plan to get me back. I found my friends, and they informed me that they had just gotten brand new released flavors of Mr. Juicy drinks. This time it came in lemon flavored. However, they said, it had been in the sun for a bit, so it was warm. Being my gullible and naïve 8 year-old self, I had no problem trusting my wonderful friends without any suspicions. Both my sister and myself began to sample the lemon flavored Mr. Juicy. My sister was thirsty and started to guzzle it down. The Mr. Juicy concoction entered my mouth, hit my taste buds, and I immediately knew I had been tricked.
“AUGH!” I cried out after spitting the nastiness onto the ground. “This tastes like piss!” To which my sister started gagging and trying to spit out the remainder that was in her mouth. She had clearly swallowed some already. My friends were laughing hysterically.
Hey! I warned you this was going to be disgusting! If you read this far and are sorry you did, fearing you may have just thrown up a little bit in your mouth, you only have yourself to blame. Don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning to skip ahead.
Thanks to my friends, I now had Miah’s pee inside of me! He literally gets it everywhere. After a few words were exchanged, I joined in and helped prepare more nasty drinks to see whom else we could trick. See what I mean? Yes, it’s definitely disgusting beyond belief, and yet still leads to the funny! Why does it lead to the funny do you ask? Because, we made it happen to somebody else too!

A New Update From The Colonel

As you can see, I have learned how to take pictures of myself without the bothersome shot showing my arm extended. Also you might want to take notice that I can do all this and more with the use of opposable thumbs, you inferior humanoid ingrates.

I have taken a short bit of time out of my fairly busy day (I am VERY important and all, you know) to update you on how things are progressing in this so-called "Mookified" household.

The Napping economy has suffered slightly as result of increased Random Pscyhotic Moments production. I have personally managed to enlarge the holes in the screen of the young children's bedroom window. I mean really, I have great eyesight (fully equipped with inborn nightvision capabilities), but with so much wire criss-crossing, the view is ruined. And in step with my natural occasional moments of compassion for the people who live here, I thought, "Hey, why not improve their ability to look outside?" So, I did. General Mookie recently replaced the screen door on the slider out to "The Deck". Obviously he is very stupid with his naming privileges. This is clearly a forward observation point and launch post to combat aerial recon missions being flown in by those dastardly birds. It is also where I launch my own recon missions of the upstairs tenets in this compound. They have one sweet mama of a kitty! YOWZA
Currently, I am trying to figure a way to infiltrate this new defense screen, so that my prior activities may again run on schedule unencumbered. I keep getting chased away by the General. One of these days, he and I are going to have a little hand to hand training, and he's going to suffer an accident if you know what I mean.

Nutrient Rich imports are flowing steadily. I am currently in a race with the 10-yr old to see who can deplete the food supply, and the General's money consequently, the fastest. I am still in the recycling business as well, doing my best soldierly duty of maintaining a Green household. I have chewed up the last three days newspapers, so far managing to digest at least 1 1/2 days worth, along with a few random pieces of cardboard. I prefer corrugated over that cereal box business.

Which leads us to our main industrial output sector: Fecal Production. I am pleased to say that we are up 28% over the projections for this month, and 34% over last month, SO FAR (with 17 days left...I'm really excited about this). Must be all that fiber intake fuel used to run this smooth operation. We would put forth press photos, however, due to national security reasons, my advisors have chosen to keep them classified for the time being. My office realizes this only fuels the speculation among conspiracy theorists that there may be a second pooper behind the fuzzy blanket, but rest assured, this is a singular effort.

We will not be taking questions right now, as I have a busy schedule ahead of me today. Lots of napping, kid terrorizing, eating, oh and napping, that needs to be attended to. Thank you, that will be all.

With Regards,
Colonel Beauregard Sterling Lovell
Feline War Division, Commanding