The Famous Camper Story

In honor of Father's Day I'm re-posting this old story:
When I was sixteen, my father bought a camper...
Not just any camper, - a super deluxe motor-home.
An immense road ship and loaded with features.
It had a full kitchen, a nice stereo system. It slept six, and it had a bathroom.
You could even take a shower if you wanted to.
My father beamed with pride as he showed it off to the neighbors, coloring his sentences with flourishing adjectives that would make a salesman blush, as he gave extended tours to friends.

The camper was the pride of the neighborhood that first week we had it.
Dad's plan was to retire soon, and take his wife and his two youngest kids on a three month tour of the USA. ...but first, he decided that we would spend a long weekend up at Sebego Lake to test it out.
The four of us spent three days in it, cooking and washing dishes, eating and using the bathroom, getting dirty and using the shower.

It had a 35 gallon holding tank.

We awoke on the third morning and gradually, we detected a very unpleasant odor.
"Jesus! See a doctor, will ya?" My father huffed, blaming my mother,my brother, or possibly me for the gastric outrage. "

Which one of you just died? God! Open a window!"
We protested and explained that it wasn't us. We certainly did smell it though!

He went to the bathroom door and opened it. Suddenly the entire camper smelled like Big foot's ass!
An overpowering sickening sour cloud of stench bombarded the air, the smell of ten nursing homes.
"The waste tank is full. It has to be emptied." my father announced, holding his nose.
The smell was so overpowering that we were forced to evacuate as we gasped for air.

Outside the camper ,the four of us discussed what to do. We were new at this camper business, and we had no idea how to empty the friggin' waste tank.

There was a hose that went from the camper into the ground. We needed to find out how to open the tank to release the sewage. We had no clue how to do it.

"Look around for a lever or something!" my father barked to my older brother.
"Find me the manual to this thing," We each took a deep breath and went back into the rolling porta-potty to find the manual.
Mom checked the glove compartment in the stinky cab and I went deep into methane hell to open the windows and look for the manual there. My dad scratched his bald head, looking high and low for the lever or button that would release the sewage.

There were other motor homes near us arranged in neat little rows . A very nice gentleman appeared from the camper next to ours, saw us all wandering around looking for something and offered to help.

The two men shook hands and introduced themselves. I think his name was Ted.

His motor home was even bigger than ours, so he had to know what he was doing.
They walked around the camper looking for buttons and levers, discussing the problem. It smelled like sh*t all around the area. Ted suggested that maybe because it was new, there might be some sort of factory seal keeping the tank from emptying.
He unclamped the hose from the bottom of the camper.
He examined the outlet pipe carefully.
He layed on his back with a screwdriver in his hand and looked up into the pipe.

...Meanwhile, on the other side of the camper, my father announced, "Wait a minute! I think I found it!"

There was a low rumble, a loud gurgle, followed by an erupting splash.

An explosion of filth gushed from the pipe like a firehose directly into poor Ted's face.
He rolled to escape as a flood of toxic waste. Three days of voided leavings, toilet paper, Lincoln logs, and ripe whiz juice, thirty five gallons of indescribably disgusting nastiness washed over his body.
He was almost swept away by it.
He scrambled to his feet, soaked in pee and made a sound halfway between a moan and a retch and then ran to the lake and dove in.
He splashed around washing himself for a while, then put his hands on his knees and hurled.

My brother and I couldn't believe how this could happen. We simply turned to rubber with laughter.
My father, seeing what he had done to poor Ted, was in shock, horrified at the disaster he had caused.

He alternated between apologizing to Ted in a crying voice, "I'm so sorry! Oh my God! I'm sorry!" to barking at my brother and I, "Shut up! God-Dammit! This isn't funny!"
...But it was!

I went into the camper to hide, and roll on the floor with my brother, laughing hysterically with tears running down our faces, but trying not to be loud about it, so Dad wouldn't kill us.

In the front of the cab was my Mother. Head in her hands ducking down. For a second, I thought she was crying, but I saw her shoulders rocking.
She was trying so hard not to laugh, but she was falling apart, laughing her ass off, slapping her knees, tears rolling down her cheeks, helplessly convulsing in laughter.

The three of us were inside the camper flopping around like fish, gasping for air, while my poor father, riddled with guilt was pleading with Ted to please forgive him.


Later that night the two men sat by the campfire drinking Crown Royal, My father continuously apologizing for what he's done to poor Ted.

My father said, "Ted in my life I've given a lot of shit to people, but I never gave anyone the amount of shit I gave you tonight!"Ted laughed like hell.

He really was good at taking shit from people.