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Toilet Seat Shortages “Chronic” in Forests
(Ouray) The lack of toilet seats in the National Forests this year has reached chronic proportions and may be linked to a revenge motive on the part of government agencies says a recently released report in Flusher’s Digest.
The independently published piece claims that the USFS and other federal agencies has dropped the number of prescribed toilets in our national forests to punish persons opposed to fees on public lands over the past few summers.
In one such destination, Yankee Boy Basin, new toilet seats are almost unheard of while luxuries like toilet tissue and air fresheners remain on a first-come, first served capacity, with even the most basic supplies exhausted by mid-week. While many campers bring their own waste facilities the more traditional visitor often relies on porta-johns or other privies to conduct constitutional business in the woods.
According to a story in the local paper the scenario has become a “squishy” one with hordes of campers being forced to use the great outdoors as their latrine. While this practice is quite popular with other mammals, humans tend to congregate in designated camp grounds and use nearby land as their dumping grounds.
“Bears and mountain lions often cover 50 square miles per day hunting and staying away from people,” said a spokesman for Poop Jumpers, a local recreational association that is responsible for waste management among other things. “It’s easy to see why they aren’t the problem. Sure, we’re talking organic but the impact is caused by congestion not substance.”
According to the Department of Public Sanitation, a wing of the Homeland Security Agency, the magazine’s accusations are false and there is no revenge motive for the termination of federal funding.
“People who were against the fees will just have to stand in line a little longer or provide for their own comforts,” said Roy Thistledown, a campsite host and former CIA operative from Spar City. “We’ve had the same problem all along the Alpine Loop until we started handing out little pooper scoopers compliments of the local chambers of commerce.”
The article continued saying campsite fees were up three dollars from last year. Whether that increase was enough to build more facilities was unclear at press time. Alluding to a presumably federally generated pamphlet advising campers how to dig a cat hole, the paper went on to describe just how to cover and disguise the aperture.
“People in emerging societies solve these kinds of problems by charging a small fee at the entrance to restrooms,” said one camper who has lived illegally in The Great San Juan for 50 years. “Often the fee, collected by an otherwise unemployed person, includes tissue and a splash of down under water.
Despite the failures often common to other functions of government there this potty policy seems to have merit.
“I cannot speak for the outlying areas or for jungle redoubts, said the squatter, “since the media continually warns us they are populated by bandits and terrorists are not safe for deep-seated human habitation.”
When contacted yesterday one state sanitation official agreed to look into the matter.
Criticized for running a feature piece on such a sensitive subject right on the front page an unreliable source at the local paper said that the story needed to be told.
“In addition, it added, “the piece provoked more reader response than coverage of the week’s city council meeting and the Republican state convention combined.