The pipes in my neighborhood had clogged up with ice and sewage over the weekend, so they had to shut down the whole town for a couple of hours on Saturday, except for the Lutheran church on the edge of town.

So, we're driving to the church to poop, stuck in a long line of neighbors also gripping their sphincters (you could tell from the expressions on the faces who'd had perhaps some spicy chili the night before, or maybe some bad fish), and we get stuck just at the turn where the crew is working on cleaning the pipes.

Five burly men dressed in safety orange vests and thick, leather gloves to protect against the bitter cold wrestled and pried at the pipes beneath the street. Between them they grasped an enormous pipe cleaner, easily twenty-eight inches in diameter and several feet long; the part they held exposed from the obstructed pipe was four feet of bright furry white bended up toward the sky.

While we sat, clenching, they heaved forward as one, and something in the pipe gave. Two of the men went down, but it appeared the pipe had been cleared. A muffled applause arose from the gridlocked cars, and the workers waved.

Though happy to be turning left toward home to poop instead of right toward the church, I certainly did not need to see the dark brown, matted and glistening six or seven feet of filthy pipe cleaner they extracted.

I felt like a dirty, dirty boy with my full bowels, contributing to all that noisome goo.

Maybe I would poop in the lake.

If it wasn't so cold.

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