One day in fifth grade — sometime in 1970, I expect — at Druid Hills School (pictured above), I happened to have tomato soup at lunchtime. I no longer care much for tomato soup, but in those days, I was fine with it. Anyway, it wasn't long after lunch that I went into the restroom to go pee, and the moment I stepped through the door, I knew something was rotten in the state of Denmark. All over the floor, there were numerous piles of poo, big old turds of obviously recent vintage, though surely more than a single human being could have produced at one time. Not only that, poo was smeared on the walls, on the mirrors, all over the backs of the toilets and urinals. Pretty damn gross. And it stank to high heaven. Still, I had to pee like a bear, so being a trooper, I figured I'd hold my breath and make the best of it.
For a little while, that worked. I got my business mostly done before I had to breathe again. But when I did — oh, my god — the stench up and did me in. Thar she blows! Major urpage, all tomato soup, redder than red, which just made it worse. I spewed all over the wall, all over the floor, all over those happy piles of poo.
My fifth grade math teacher, Mrs. Davis (who later died under mysterious circumstances) heard the gagging and retching and came rushing in to see what was wrong. When she caught sight of all that poo and me urping streams of bright red, she let out a pretty good holler, reached to grab me, and then drew back because I had not quite finished. Once I did, she was in a state all right, clearly worried my innards had exploded in bloody fury. It took some time to convince her it was only tomato soup and even longer to make her believe I was not the mad poo bomber.
To the best of my recollection, the mad poo bomber never was identified. I was pretty sure I knew who it was, but I could never have proven it. Bastard. Anyway, I reckon the statute of limitations for poo bombing has expired.
As I said, I don't care much for tomato soup or even tomato juice these days, though I confess I'm all about a good Bloody Mary now and again.
