The Great Shit Blockage

A very long time ago in a place called Kabouterland there lived a group of about 20 people in the same house on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. The number of persons living there wasn�t precise, because it varied from one day to the next depending on how many people the occupants brought home with them each night. You see, the occupants were quite young, and well, you know the rest. There was this one emotionally unbalanced American girl from California that came home with someone different every night, but that�s a different story for another time.

This house on Prinsengracht was a �krakenhuis.� And no, that doesn�t mean �crack house.� This was about 15 B.C.E. (Before Crack Entrepreneurs). The word krakenhuis means cracked house. In Amsterdam in those days a group of people would break into unoccupied houses and take up residence, because there was a serious shortage of decent housing available. The group was called The Oranje Vrijstaat about which it�s rumored that they were anarchists of the benevolent kind (not bomb throwers). As you might imagine, running water and electricity had to be �expropriated� from the bourgeoisie. The Oranje Vrijstaat cracked open the electricity box, and behold, there was light. They also connected a clear yellow hose to a water line from somewhere (the occupants remained happily ignorant of the source), and provided water to the house by passing the hose through a partially open window in the kitchen. Well, that�s where the problem really began.

Now, the residents of the house on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam blissfully thought they could just live as if everything were ok. Of course, twenty some odd humans can produce an awfully large amount of shit. To look at them, you could be forgiven for believing that their skinny bodies were the result of not getting very much to eat. But, if the shit they excreted could be used as any indication, then they had no problem getting enough to eat (their mothers would be glad to know). Oh, don�t laugh�this is serious business here. The time came that both of the W.C.s (toilets for you Americans) became completely blocked from an overload of shit. The residents were a frugal group, and preferred to use old newspaper for wiping their asses rather than buy paper made for that purpose. The blockage proved to be the occasion of much speculation about what could be the cause. Naturally, some suspected the newspaper, some suspected that one of the other residents had put something inappropriate in there like a sanitary napkin or something. This unfortunate predicament of the blockage didn�t deter the residents from depositing more and more shit in the toilets though. In fact, it reached a point where the shit piled up so high that you couldn�t sit on the toilet without getting someone else�s shit on your ass. Not to mention the smell. Now, these folks were tolerant (the Dutch are famous for that), but even tolerance has a limit. That�s when the hero of our story stepped in.

Harry Arp resided in the house on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, and unlike the others, he was a man of action (at least he�s the only one that made an effort to do anything about the problem). Harry decided it was time to take matters into his own hands, literally. With the help of one of the other residents Harry carefully put a plastic bag on his right arm. He and his helper tied it on in several places with twine so that it wouldn�t accidentally slip and expose his arm to everyone�s shit. With the bag covering his arm up above his elbow, Harry courageously dived in, so to speak. He stuck his hand into the accumulated shit, feeling his way to the hole that was clogged. Down, down, he went until he was turning his head to the left to avoid putting his face into the pile. Finally, he pulled his arm out and the shit started flowing (if it can be said to flow) out. His helper asked, �So, was it newspaper?� Harry answered, �It�s just shit, man.� Again, the incredulous helper asked, �But, what was it?� Again, Harry said, �It�s just shit, man.�