First time I had an outhouse experience, I was around three and a half. Don’t ask me why I added six months. I remember I was potty trained, but I’m fairly certain that I wasn’t four years old yet. Part of the reason for this calculated memory, is watching my wonderful grandson. At three, he’s doing a terrific job with his potty training. So good, I have promised him a dollar bill for each time that he leaves the turd in the toilet instead of his diaper.
He still needs a little supervision, which is okay. He’s not three and a half yet. That’s why I figure that I was “about” three and a half, because I’m proud to say, I was no longer in potty training boot camp. I was a big boy now wearing real underwear, my cousin Mikey, a year younger, was still loading up his diaper on a frequent basis.
Mikey would sometimes run around with a drooping shit-filled, stinky diaper for quite some time before an adult picked up on the odor, or happen to see the dog sniffing at a small track of shit that had squeezed out of Mikey’s diaper onto the kitchen linoleum. I pretty sure at two, I was loading up my diaper and stinking up the room along with the other “Babies”. So don’t feel bad, Mikey.
But at three and a half, and diaperlessly potty trained, all of a sudden, I wasn’t a baby anymore and I realized just how much shit really did stink, especially Mikey’s. 
Soon as it was too much to bear, I would wander towards the big people pointing back at Mikey saying, “Crap in the diaper here folks, time to change the baby’s diaper!” or I would say something like, “Mama, you said Aunty Alice’s shit doesn’t stink, well, Mikey’s does”.
Anyway, we were at someone’s house, a cabin, and the outhouse was all they had. I know it wasn’t Uncle Chuck’s cabin. His outhouse was really fancy, this outhouse was plain and simple. As I jumped up and positioned myself over the hole, I noticed a bucket full of corncobs. my first thought was, “Why do they bring their com to the toilet to eat?”
I do remember that I loved “Corn on the Cob” as a toddler, I still love corn on the cob. Except whenever we had it for dinner, Mom would stand my corn on its’ end and run her knife down the sides trimming those delicious kernels onto my plate. Eventually I was allowed to use those yellow plastic com cob holders with the nails.
So, back to the outhouse, when I was finished doing my duty, I used pages from a “Monkey Wards” catalog. Ran back outside to play the other kids. About an hour later with that bucket of corncobs still on my mind, I asked Mom, “Why do they eat their Corn on the Cob in the bathroom?”. She laughed, not quite sure what I was talking about. I explained a little further, “There’s a bucket of naked “used” corncobs in the baffroom, (as I called it then).
Mom laughed again and explained that the corncobs were there in case there wasn’t any toilet paper or reading materials in the outhouse. My first thought was ouch! that has to hurt! 
Years later I understood what the words, “Corn” and “Hole” when used as one word meant. “OUCH!”. No. It never happened to me, I just saw it happening to some other poor dude. Their really was a “Bubba”.
If anyone here has tried at least once in your life to wipe your ass with a corncob, you know it’s not a painful thing really because you “wipe” with it. I suppose there has to be a few kinky people in history that have shoved that cob right up their butt hole. I for one, have never felt the overwhelming desire to shove anything up my ass.
Well, I have to admit, as an adult, I have wondered a few times about having a string of pearls pulled out of my ass right at orgasm. Anyway, if you have used corncobs for toilet paper, you just tend to look at corncobs in a slightly different way every 4th of July, or whenever you happen to have it as part of a meal. All these years later, my favorite way to cook them is on the grill with the husk left on. I don’t save the cobs.
A few people have wondered what MY writing has to do with PTSD. If you are currently suffering from PTSD, try communicating with at least yourself by writing. Write down your memories. Write your opinions. You don’t have to share them with the whole world like I do. Write about raising Petunias or raising your children.
Just write. I guarantee that you will feel better about not only yourself, you will feel more positive about others around you, your family, and the world in general. Somewhere along the way, you just might make someone else feel better about themselves. That’s my goal, to not only feel better myself, but in the process, help others help themselves.
In my case, what I’m going thru right now is therapeutic treatment for a issue that was brought on by the stroke that I had a year ago. My PTSD was caused by childhood experiences, read “Running around like a chicken with it’s head off ripped off” to get an idea of the type of things that can cause PTSD. It’s not just a wartime “Battle Fatigue” issue. Ask the survivors of any kind of horrific incident, wither it’s a terrorist attack or the violent rape of your teenage daughter.
So tonight I write about corncobs and my sphincter muscle. Speaking about my particular sphincter muscle, if you have read some of my previous posts, you can recall that I had lived with an ostomy for three years. The wonderful doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix hooked my asshole back up, got rid of the bag hanging off my stomach, and repaired my Peristomal hernia.
Before I left the hospital, I asked my primary surgeon if I should look forward to having problems, like shitting in my pants, because of the possible lack of my sphincter muscle waking up properly after being in a coma for three years. He assured me I would be fine, that I had a beautiful sphincter muscle.
I thought to myself, “Gee, glad you like it so much, Doc. I wonder if there was any chance that my surgery included a special bonus?”. Image of the doctor on top of me testing my sphincter muscle with his special tool saying to one of the nurses, “I think we need a little more Vaseline here”.
I haven’t shit my pants, not even a Hershey Squirt, and it’s been six months now. I love being able to take a normal crap now. I love being able to fart like normal again. Those of you who have an ostomy, or knows someone who does, know that the weirdest thing is to fart thru the hole in your stomach. No smell at all, but just a weird sounding fart.
I was sitting next to a friend at Owen’s second birthday last year, and let out, actually you don’t have a sphincter muscle in your stoma hole, so you have absolutely no control over when and where. You don’t “let” out a fart, it just comes when it wants to. Same thing with filling your bag full of crap. It fills on it’s own, like it’s separate from all other body functions.
The sound alone made her almost fall out of her chair, “What the fuck was that?” You respond by pretending it’s your upset stomach. She knows a fart when she hears one. She can’t begin to comprehend why that seemingly amplified fart just exploded from just below my belt. You could say it was the cows trying to get out of the barn. That doesn’t work unless your stomach really is rumbling.
When I look back four years ago, comparing with post corrective surgery, I do not have the same sphincter muscle function as before my original surgery three and a half years ago. I have better sphincter muscle function now and my farts are different.
Before, I sometimes had so much gas, I could power a Moped. Now I don’t have as much gas, or the natural ability to store it up for the explosion on the elevator at the Mall. What I do notice is that I almost a relationship with my sphincter. When I walk around, wither at home or at the grocery store, I tend to release these motorboat putt-putt-putt sounds almost uncontrollably, like my sphincter has a stutter.
You have to be close to me, like in an elevator or sitting next to me at church, to hear them. Its worse if you are standing still, like in an elevator, because that putt-putt-putt might last for a minute or so. And then the little old lady turns and looks at you and asks if you’re okay. You respond by pretending the sound is coming from your stomach.
She knows a fart when she hears one, the difference is those little putt-putt-putts were really stinkalascious. Thank God the door opens and you get off the elevator hoping that the little old lady isn’t going to the same doctors office. This actually happened one day. She wasn’t going to the same office. It’s fine if you are walking down an aisle at Walmart, if your little motor boat is running as you walk by someone, you vibrate your lips as you exhale.
My son sent me a text about an hour ago telling me his band was playing a gig. I was so involved in my writing, I didn’t respond until I took a short break, and a hit off my pipe. I text him back saying that I was writing a new post, having a blast, 
“This one is flowing out like a stand-up routine, like Hershey Squirting out the words”. My text was still in the frame of mind as the post I was writing.
Those of you that are having any kind of mental health issues at all, not just PTSD, the point of my story is, try communicating with yourself by writing. Those of you who get this, who try writing as therapy, and it’s been a positive experience you, please write to me and let me know that it’s helped you. That was and is my only goal.
Oh yeah, the end of my sphincter story. My sphincter is very loyal, and accurate. When I really need to take a dump, Mr. Sphincter let’s me know with precision and authority. How many of you have thought you were just going to fart, and had a little accident instead? I smelled it! Cause I dealt it!
I admit, once in life, probably thirty years ago , I was at some party, and had a little “Accident”. I remember the conditions I had at the time, when my mind thought fart, and my sphincter said “Shit!”. One of the conditions was drinking way beyond safe limits. Another condition Is eating way too much of that lasagna and pizza. 
Third and final condition, walking through the kitchen and taking a big swig out of that fancy bottle of…………wait for it, Extra Extra Extra Virgin Olive Oil that your neighbor brought home from Italy. Fifty dollar bottle of rare oil. It wasn’t the French wine like you thought. Yes, when you are drunk, you drink wine right out of the bottle. Screw the glass.
You may as well have taken some Castor Oil. I was dancing/stumbling on the patio, went to fart, shit my pants, and then spent the next hour finishing the crap, and washing my white tennis shorts using Susie’s blow dryer to dry the beige stain on the back and down the inside of both legs. Funniest part was when Susie yells through the door, “Who’s in there, people are waiting to use the bathroom. Harry is that you using my Hairdryer again?”
I eventually found out that in many countries and cultures, it is common to drink a little bit of olive oil every day. Now, I love olive oil as part of a sauce on pasta or pizza. I don’t like it enough to EVER drink it again
Final thought, those who would say, “The second amendment gives me the right to own this AR-15”. May I kindly respond, “You have the right to go play horseshoe with Hand Grenades as well, I suppose?”
Strain: 1979 Bordeux