Last week I told you all about the rental cottage in Haliburton where Kate and Safety Carrot and I spent some time in August. You will remember especially the rude and boorish neighbour and his Sea-Doo.
The good news is that the neighbour was a minor distraction, and most of the time we were very happy indeed to be there in that rental cottage. It was apparently owned by a family with the surname Gill; there were little wood signs all over the place saying "The Gill's" (sic). Many of them had fish on them. Get it? Fish have gills! Haw!
But.
The Gills' summer retreat did not have the one sign any self-respecting cottage MUST have. Specifically, it did not have the traditional hand-lettered note above the W.C. advising which sorts of eliminations are to be flushed and which are to be left to mellow.
You have of course seen many such notes. Usually they say this:
If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.
The Gills had no such note above their W.C. This made me feel sad for them, because their cottage was in all other respects fully and beautifully appointed.
So.
I decided to make a W.C. sign for them. Using some fine old parchment I had brought along for sketching, I wrote them a custom W.C. rhyme. Then I built a small, rustic-looking frame of birch bark, and I mounted it on the Gills' bathroom wall. I sure do hope they and their guests like it.
Would you like to read the poem? O.K.
Posted by Bret at September 3, 2003 11:05 AMWe have a rule here at the Gills',
Designed to curb our septic bills.Think about what you just did.
Did you rush to close the lid?
Did you give off toxic fumes?
Do your vapours fill the room?
Bend down close, right near the hole,
And look, and sniff the seat and bowl.If it's gold or if it's green,
If it's somewhere in between,
If it's salty, if it's sour,
If 'twas beer within the hour,
If it's liquid there beneath ya,
If it came out your urethra,Leave it in its current state!
Leave it there to percolate!But...
If it's speckled, if it's greasy,
If it's dirty, stinking feces,
If it's lumpy, loggy poo,
Here's the thing that you must do:Flush it down and flush it out!
Flush away that toilet trout!
Thanks so much!Love,
The GillsP.S. Please flush asparagus pee.
Comments from you, the internet public:
Ummm...
While you are always more than welcome to come to the Pigdump northern office (Barfy the Bucket misses Safetycarrot a great deal), you are not allowed to write pottery...er... poetry while you are there.
Thanks and good luck.
Posted by pigdump at September 3, 2003 05:16 PMWhen I read your poem I thought you were pissed
Or doing some penance because you had missed
And I wondered about the policy, you
Had created some time back to inhibit the few
Creative of insight, of genius kissed.
But lo and behold and holy old molly
I figgered it out and feel quite, quite jolly
The latent, poetic, incredible you
Must have strained himself much when he took a big poo
And blew out a gasket or fractured his folly.
And would you believe that as subtle as that
You duped the poor reader, you foxy old cat
The hole in the toilet where deposits are made
Is a Swiss-type invention, I think it is said
A cheesy deposit how absolute true
Cheap poetic license to end it like that.
Post a comment of your own:
Sir:
You weird man!
Noswad
Posted by Noswad at September 3, 2003 02:49 PM