Why I Hate Pickup Trucks

Why I Hate Pickup Trucks

Growing up in Oklahoma, you are expected to like four things: country music, barbecue, football, and pickups. Having discovered that country music wasn’t my thing at an early age, I couldn’t afford to dislike any of the other three. And up until I was five-years-old, that wasn’t a problem. I loved barbecue, played football, and even owned a toy pickup truck or two. Life was good.

I especially enjoyed playing outside with my apple red pickup. Picking up dirt and dumping it. Picking it up. Dumping it. Picking it up. Dumping it.

Able to entertain myself hours on end with such a vivid imagination, I spent many summer days with a large pile of dirt and my red truck.

One day during some heavy dumping, I started to feel the urge to do some dumping of another sort. But since I had limited hours before dinner, I decided to repress the need and hold it. I had waited a number of times before and had suffered only a few lost tighty-whities as a result. I was notorious for leaving streaks of brown on my Fruit of the Looms. One more pair of not-so-whities hidden under my mattress in shame meant nothing.

But, this time was different. After a few minutes, the urge had grown to an issue I could no longer ignore. As the need to poop grew, my desire to continue playing trucks somehow grew along with it. My heart and my ass were working in complete dissonance.

Play or satisfy a basic human impulse?

Confused, I had to act fast. My red pickup still full of dirt, I did the obvious thing and squatted down to dump it out. That sudden movement into patent pooping position did me in, though. I had no other alternative but to pull down my pants and shit right then and there.

Initially, the poop seemed to go off without a hitch, and I felt pretty good about myself. I just had a nice solid crap and all around me I could hear birds chirping and squirrels scurrying through the trees. Not only had I avoided soiling myself, but I was communing with nature. Plus, I still had time to finish playing trucks—although the dumping site was sure to move now that there was a turd smack dab in the middle of it.

A good day all around.

While taking the wonder of nature in, however, a problem became clear: I didn’t have any toilet paper. Granted, I was famous for skid marks, but not wiping at all was even beneath me.

Since I was outside, I figured I’d go all out and do as the cavemen did. If a leaf worked for them, why not me? Luckily, right next to me was a sapling with nice big, green leaves. Perfect for ass-wiping. Grabbing one, I started the cleaning process. Then I grabbed another. And another. When the sapling was nearly bare, I had a sudden insight:

This was no ordinary poo.

No, this was a poo that could only originate in the bowels of a five-year-old that had eaten a whole box of Ghostbuster’s Cereal the night before. It was one of those mushy custardy turds that sticks to your asshole like rubber cement. No matter how much I wiped, no matter how many leaves I went through, my asshole just wouldn’t come clean. Having almost run through every leaf or shred of grass within a two foot radius, the question soon became, “How the hell do I get myself out of this mess?”

I figured I had two solutions. I could crabwalk back to the house, shuffle into the bathroom, and use a whole roll of toilet paper to get clean. Or, I could grab the last remaining leaf and hope to God that my ass would relinquish the sticky excrement that remained.

It was a foolish decision, really, but I ultimately did what any reasonable 5-year-old would have done. I grabbed the last leaf, stood up, bent myself over like an altar boy, and really started digging in there, scraping out any fecal residue I could find.

Before I knew it, the leaf was gone, having been either torn to pieces or, perhaps, shoved deep within my poo hole without my realizing it. For a moment, I was forced to ponder what had become of that last leaf. And what the hell had I been wiping myself with for the past minute?

(It turned out to be my hand).

As I stood there pondering the mysterious disappearance, I suddenly realized I wasn’t alone. That shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. Unfortunately, I hadn’t found a very good hiding spot to take my midday shit. In fact, I had essentially decided to take a dump in the front yard, unimpeded by any unnecessary bushes or even an old stump. It was, as I said, an absolute emergency that clearly clouded any sense of self-decency.

I’m not sure if I noticed the laughing first or actually felt their eyes burning into my skull, but I slowly looked toward the street to see a pickup truck full of slack-jawed teenage boys parked in front of the house having the time of their lives. The tallest boy in the truck bed was pointing at me like he was modeling for the Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster. They might as well have had bags of popcorn and a girl under their arms. I had become the matinee.

Still bent over as if waiting for an induction to spiritual self-sacrifice, I removed my poop-ridden hand from my butt. I couldn’t run due to having my pants around my ankles. With nothing left to do, I was left to make the humiliating crabwalk back into the house with the teenagers laughing the whole time.

Avoiding anyone on my way to the bathroom, I opened the door (with my now-browned hand, no less) and squeezed inside. Closing the door, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that at last the humiliation was over.

Only one little problem….

We were out of toilet paper.