A Taste of Honey

This cautionary tale I’ll tell and try to tell with taste
Involving as it does a porta-potty full of waste
It’s a story with a moral, a story I must tell
and I promise if you hear me I won’t dwell upon the smell
Won’t go into detail regarding sound and sight
and I just might make a porta-potty bandit see the light

I was out upon the playa appreciating art
my bowel requested egress more substantial than a fart
And so I sought the comfort of a black rock porta-potty
And I finally located one behind illuminaughty

Seated in the cubicle just going with the flow
I noticed down between my legs a green and eerie glow
At first I thought “well this is nice the potty has a light”
But even as I thought it I knew it wasn’t right

On looking in the septic tank I truly was aghast
someone had left an item that their body hadn’t passed
As a citizen of Black Rock I was mad enough to shout
My civic pride welled up and I resolved to fish it out

I didn’t want to use my hand for I am no one’s fool
and so I used the tools at hand to poke about the stool
The only thing of any use that was around to find
was a half filled plastic bottle someone had left behind

Using it I finally found a glow stick in the muck
I prodded and poked till above the stuff it stuck
then with wads of tissue I deftly plucked it out
I threw it ‘tween two potties since no trashbins were about

Back upon my tricycle I was making for camp lush
when a woman that I recognized came up in a rush
It was the woman in the porta-potty just before my turn
a loss she had suffered had prompted her return

She asked me if she’d left behind a bottle full of liquor
I said “no” in innocence I was not trying to trick her
She went inside the potty and when she came back out
She held the plastic bottle and waved it all about

And as she did I noticed around her she had placed
a belt festooned with glow sticks that set aglow her waist
It seemed that one was missing and I knew where it lay
So as she sucked the bottle I just grinned and rode away

The moral of the story is that there is no excuse
for endangering the privilege of porta-potty use
and if you put inside them anything you did not pass
karma and yours truly will kick you in the ass.


by Reed Hortie

About the author: Tales From the Playa

Tales From the Playa

Tales From the Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by participants. Submit your story here.