“Homecoming Parade Float”

By Brion Boyles

OK. so…I was 18, new in the Navy and on my first port visit to Japan. The ship, USS MOTICELLO, had pulled into Yokosuka, and a shipmate asked me if I wanted to go to Tokyo with him and a couple of other guys in a rented car and visit an old friend they knew… maybe play some poker. “Sure!”, I said, and we all piled into the car and headed off.

We parked on a tiny street fronting a tall apartment building, and went up to the 4rth floor, where a party was in progress. I sat in on the poker game until I felt the need to unload, asked for the bathroom, and headed in. Locking the door, I turned and looked for the toilet. “Where the fuck is the TOILET!?!?”

There, obviously, is the sink, there’s a wastebasket…and recessed into the floor was what looked like a ceramic bedroom slipper, with a drain hole and some kind of tank above it. This, I figgered, was the mystical Japanese-style toilet I had heard a bit about. As I was already starting to “cap”, I thought no further…dropped trou, squatted over the narrow hole and let loose a perfect, foot-long log so dry and solid it made a “TINK!” noise when it hit the ceramic. I made use of a few sheets of ass-wipe from the roll, and then looked for the flush lever.

No flush lever. There was a stumpy thing poking out of the tank, so I pushed it, tried to twist it…no joy. My concrete turd still lay motionless at the bottom of the pure-white trough. Now someone is pounding at the door…”You OK, man?”…

“Yeah! Just a minute!”. Not knowing what else to do, I yanked about 20 feet of toilet paper and carefully picked up my still-warm work of art, rolling it in the toilet paper like an Egyptian artifact. Then, I quietly opened the tiny window over the tank and lobbed the shitlog-mummy out into the darkness of the Oriental night.

I returned to the poker game, whereupon the host said, “I hope that missing lever didn’t give you trouble. Most people figure out that’s what the bottle opener on the string by the sink is for…” “Sure, no sweat…figgered it out right away!” I said, not wanting to look like a “boot camp” in front of all these salty sailors.

Well, we played into the night and decided to head back to the ship, but as we approached the rental car, to my utter shame and horror….I noticed it looked like a badly done float in a High School Homecoming Parade….strewn with toilet paper and Milk Duds….

“WTF?!?!?” sez my shipmate, to which I muttered, “Just get the fuck in, and drive fast. I’ll explain later….”