Things that go thump in the night

Once upon a time I had a friend named Friend; at least I will call him that to protect the innocent. Friend was a good man, never met a stranger, and would give anyone the shirt off his back; a very much the salt of the earth type. I only knew Friend for a few years, however during those years, we became as close as chums could be. Friend and his lovely wife and sweet child moved from another state to East Tennessee to work and that is where I met him; he and I were employed at the same place in the same department.

Friend, like the rest of our circle of acquaintances, liked to drink beer. He also liked Mexican food, the hotter the better. We all know that when sufficient beer is mixed with plenty of spicy food inside the human gut, explosive gas, liquid, and solid discharges may occur, either separately or all at once.

Friend was no exception to the laws of nature, in fact, he practiced those laws with a determined fervor. Mr. and Mrs. Friend bought a house not too far from where they worked; a pleasant brick rancher a little larger than the norm but all-in-all, about like most of us owned in the 1970's. The house had a full basement, unfinished, but with a good concrete floor and a high ceiling, and Friend bought the home with the purpose of sometime putting in a pool table. Until a such table could be had, he settled on a table tennis platform; more commonly known as a ping-pong table.

We had many hours of fun at Friends house, listening to music, drinking beer, and playing ping-pong. Friend like nachos; simple nachos made with Doritos®covered with bean dip, some American or cheddar cheese, and a slice of jalapeno pepper and baked in the kitchen oven. He or Mrs. Friend made pans of them at a time and we all loved them.

One midnight after I got off from work, a bunch of us were together at Friend's doing our regular thing of ping-pong, talking back and forth about this and that, eating Friend's nachos, drinking beer, and being what we considered as "cool". None of our ladies were present; civilized people were in bed doing their nightly things, but if Mrs. Friend and child Friend could sleep through the racket, they must have been blessedly drugged.

During the merriment, Friend hurriedly left us, heading up the stairs; there was no bathroom at that time in the basement. Upstairs were two bathrooms, one in what would normally have been the master bedroom and one on down the hall. Friend kept the master bedroom as a guest room and he and Mrs. Friend slept at the other end of the house. Friend was in somewhat of a hurry that night as he climbed the several steps toward relief; the beer and nachos were working their magic. We heard the somewhat loud fan in the guest bathroom come on, and a few minutes later we heard one of his glorious farts that rattle floors and walls and cause galvanized nails to instantly rust. Have you ever heard a loud outboard boat motor being tested in a barrel of water; that gurgling rattle that puts every loose object within ten feet into a vibrating frenzy? Friend must have had twin motors running that night.

The ping-pong game ceased, the music was muted, and all talking stopped as we looked at each other with awe and wonder. The bathroom was almost directly over our heads, and the plastic drain pipe fed over us to the wall nearest the table, down it and finally exiting through the floor to the outside world. When Friend flushed the toilet, we heard the most disturbing noise yet. It began with a thump, and the thumps kept getting closer together and louder as they approached us, sounding like half of a brick flopping over and over as it was pushed through the waste conduit by the rushing water. The "thing" finally hit the elbow of the pipe with a heartier than ever thunk and we heard no more from it except a muted thud as it turned through the final elbow beneath the solid floor toward the city sewer system.

We all looked at each other and shook our heads in amazement as I started toward the steps to go up and see if Friend lived through the defecation of anything so sinister sounding. Just as I started up, the top door opened and Friend came nonchalantly down. As he neared the bottom step, we all eyeballed him to see if everything was there and someone asked him if he had flushed a beer bottle down the loo. When he said he hadn't, we all stood and gave him a round of well deserved applause and back-pats.

Apparently when he finished his business and flushed the commode, the noise from the tank, plus that of water running in the sink when he washed his hands and on top of the loud exhaust fan kept him from hearing the mother of all turds slapping its way to freedom along the walls of the pipe. He grinned and said it was only a tiny poot, figuring the wall rattling fart was why we were paying him homage. He didn't quite believe us as we told him the rest of what we witnessed with our ears.

The party quickly broke up after that; beers left half drunk, nachos cooled on the pan, and pings went un-ponged—there was nothing that night could happen to top the odd event. Everyone left in a contemplative mood, heading for their homes, beds, and loving wives.