September 13, 2005

Curious George Flings Some Poo... Ok...I was cleaning the catbox today; scooping out the clumps of pee and the other solid bits...and I got me to thinking. Post Big One, toilets may not flush, and water be in too short supply to flush them with a bucket of water.

Would it be a better idea to have a uh...monkeybox filled with clumping litter? I know it sounds really gross, but to me it's less icky than a nasty festering toilet that can't be flushed. You could scoop it and triple bag it and get it the hell out of your house. Throw it out the window at marauding zombies! My plan is to lie low in my apartment, given it hasn't been destroyed, until it seems safe enough to come out. Depending on what's happened exactly, that could be a while. What do you do with poo when the shit...heh...hits the fan?

  • What the fuck are you talking about? I personally hate clumping cat litter because it smells worse. Lately my cat has been crapping *incredibly long* and huge turds. A nasty festering toilet that can't be flushed is the civilization we have built. I don't believe we can do much about it but dig a hole... and go down, go down, go down...
  • well, thatd have to be one big big litter box. Everything would spray every where, and you'd have to cover it up like them cats do
  • There are several solutions: dig a hole to bury your business is a simple, easy solution. Not so easy in urban areas, but if that's where you are when The Big One hits, then you've probably got bigger problems than where you drop a load. Another, slightly more advanced solution is the hole with a perch of some sort. See above for inherent problems. The third solution, further up the ladder, is to reintroduce running water. Roman toilets were basically a board with a hole in it over a trench of running water. The effluvia was more than likely flushed to the canals and eventually wound up the Mediterranean. Other than the flush toilet, that's pretty much it. Poop is not hard to dispose of if the population is low and it does have it's benefits, according to organic gardeners.
  • True...we could dig down and join forces with the Atomic Space Ninjas that rule the Earth's core...but that could take a loooong time...seriously though, shit and piss proved to be a major problem in NO. What the hell are you supposed to do with it when toilets don't function?
  • I guess I should make it specific to city dwellers in general and apartment or highrise occupants in particular. If you have a yard, you're ok.
  • Garde loo!!!
  • I say give the clumping material a try! You may be on to something... who the hell knows. I think the scenario of urban apartment dwellings being without functioning toilets for any length of time is not a normal one. Interesting question nonetheless. The only time I've had to deal with it myself was during a hurricane in North Carolina many years back. I had a nice large wooded plot to the side of my house, so that became the temporary loo... (which I must add was a somewhat nice... a fresh feeling to have a cool breeze whoosh to your backside). Is that too much info?
  • Burn it.
  • Instead of using the litter box, you could put a trash bag or bin liner in, say, a hamper or other boxlike receptacle. Then every time you used it, you would sprinkle a few handfuls of kitty litter over the waste to cut down on the smell. Or just lay in a supply of these.
  • I like the idea of the Wag Bags. If you could get a bigger version of those, then as they filled up you could have some nifty bean-bag-style furniture to lounge in while watching the apocolypse.
  • I'm thinking that after a major 8 or 9 point earthquake there will be burst water pipes everywhere and vast disruption of services. That and hippies looting hacky sack shops.
  • Chemical toilet. Aphasia is bad, peoples.
  • I'm gonna get me some motherfucking guns in addition to that clumping cat litter shit. Then I'm gonna blow those fucking clumps of cat crap into a billion million fecal flecks. Then I'm gonna go to the Foot Locker and get a free pair of Air Jordans.
  • Who gives a shit?
  • I had a dream last nite about a big 50 calibre Gatling gun that I was loading bullets into. We could use that to shoot the shit.
  • I just stocked up on bottled water and emergency food for me and the cats today. I guess what I learned from Katrina - aside from it being a really good idea to not be black, very young or very old, or poor - is that it's better to stay put in familiar territory if at all possible. So many people in NO ended up either jammed in public spaces with too many people in horrible conditions or stranded in the open with no protection from heat, rain, or asshole people. I want none of that.
  • Since I already tend to practice, "If it's yellow, let it mellow" and always enjoy going number one outside, I don't think it would be that big of a deal as long as there was still toilet paper.
  • ...as they filled up you could have some nifty bean-bag-style furniture to lounge in while watching the apocolypse. Form and function! Bravo!
  • I think that there must be some way to get rid of shit and piss whilst also growing illicit marijuana. I'll research that.
  • why don't you just do it in the tub?
  • I don't think I could consume something fertilised with human excrement.
  • human excrement is not very good fertiliser, but if it was, I wouldnay worry. I've had worse things in my mouth. /get's hit by mrs chy
  • Ah, if only people were ruminants.
  • Sawdust and a five gallon bucket and you too can be sitting and shitting pretty! Composting Toilet Gallery The Humanure Handbook Humanure! Ultimate enviros turn brown to green
  • Oh, and aside from this I've looked into portable toilets and pondered the kitty litter idea too. Having a new, baby kitten made me think of the kitty grit solution the other day. Might work, maybe not. Anyone want to experiment and report back in a month?
  • See, now, with all this fuss about pictures on MoFi, I gotta say that there are probby monkeys who had not previously heard of tubgirl, and are now suitably horrified. Seems that maybe the problem is not pictures but questionable behaviour by some monkeys. And furthermore, in certain cases when a Certain Monkey posted pictures here that he later perhaps regretted, he was able to go back and change them (and did, thanks!), whereas the link above is there to stay. Ick. Just my tuppence.
  • This guy has a great solution. Though, might not be to the taste of the majority of people. (NSFW text and host URL) And the Scat PackerĀ© sounds really naughty, but it's not. Completely safe for work viewing.
  • FYI: sexyrobot's link above goes, as you may or may not have guessed, to the one and only tubgirl.
  • Catapult! It's both useful and fun.
  • For what it's worth, my dad was/is a very, very big Y2K fanatic - thought the black helicopters were all coming after us, assigned guns from his personal stash to each male relative, etc. - and he went in for the plastic bag thing. Laid in a giant stock of trash bags (the, y'know, plastic liners.) Sooooooo that's the tactic favored by current apocalysts, I would guess. It's simple and I don't think they really care much about being environmentally sound.
  • What you do with it depends on where you live. NOLA proved that you shouldn't shit where you swim, but if you're gonna be on dry land when The Big One arrives, then use a hole. If you're in the city, I suppose could cut out the middleman and poop in a manhole (I think that costs extra in some jurisdictions). Dig a hole, or bag it. That pretty much covers it. Or doesn't.
  • Cropshy's idea might come in handy if there is rampant violence after $disaster. You could safely fling feces at people from large distances (with practice) and they'd never know who threw it. Break into a penthouse apartment and drop it on random people's heads. Hiking in places like the Grand Canyon and other ecologically dodgy places, you're expected to bag out all your poop and your toilet paper, so outdoorsy people may well have a head start on the urbanites who've never even squatted in a forest. Now I'm curious: what do the organisers do at Burning Man? Truck in Porta-potties or is it everyone for themselves?
  • They have porta-potties and have a guy who pumps them out into a holding tank. Read all about it here.
  • outdoorsy people may well have a head start on the urbanites who've never even squatted in a forest. Heck, I can't even go if there's someone in the next stall at work...and now you want me to go outside? Pshaw.
  • Oh... every board I frequent is buzzing with these kind of discussions, about emergency procedures, supply issues, evacuation planning... commendable, but creepy, nonetheless. And just today, I got back from an acquaintance a book I'd lend her, 'Oryx and Crake'. Ah, the timing...
  • I don't think it would be that big of a deal as long as there was still toilet paper Forget toilet paper and stock up on baby wipes. Much better for situations that may involve limited possibilities for bathing and maximum possibilities for intestinal distress. Better still, the baby wipe refills packs come already sealed in heavy plastic for long term storage, and you can get longer mileage out of a single wipe.
  • I once moved into a trailer for about three weeks. I can't fully describe the state of disrepair it was in. I was finding used, uncapped needles in the cupboards as I would blindly reach my hand in trying to clean. The fridge had been sealed shut with molasses poured all around the edges. The cold helped turn the syrup into a stronger, more sturdy glue, but before it had fully hardened, the syrup functioned as a pretty effective ant trap, who were attracted into the fridge by the rotten potatos left behind. There was a strong propane leak, which the manager solved by disconnecting the trailer from the propane line (in the middle of winter). 8 year olds would come a-knocking on my door, to see if I would like to buy some meth they stole. Also, the toilet didn't work since the first day I moved in. Absolutely no water inside it. After about a week and a half, it became apparent that not only would the manager not fix the toilet, but that I would not be staying there much longer. So instead of trekking off in the cold looking for a place to shit, I started using the toilet. Since I no longer had any propane, it never got warmer than probably about 40F, and frozen poop doesn't smell. By the time I was able to leave there, I had pretty much gotten as much use from the toilet as was physically possible. That's my contribution to the poo discussion.
  • ya shoulda sued
  • evacuation planning Heh. I suppose that were you in a highrise with a balcony you could use the magic saw that cuts instant holes in the floor used by assorted old school animated dudes on said balcony. The person below would be choked...but so what...the apocalypse ain't no time for petty bitchery! Saturday nights, however, is still alright for fightin'.
  • It has suddenly occurred to me that this discussion may have been completely unneccessary given that, as Monkeys, it's highly probable that our shit don't stink.
  • Monkeyshit can be tasty and intoxicating.
  • Also.
  • This sounds similar to using a sawdust toilet. I think I might have actually read about them on Mofi. Long story short, the use went like this: Shit in bucket full of sawdust. Cover shit in more sawdust. Eventually throw all shit in pile to compost. Heat of compost kills bacteria. Refill bucket with sawdust.
  • Best thread to read first thing in the morning, evar. I think I recall reading that in a hospital in NOLA, they used biohazard bags. I assume anything plastic would work. I just realized I've been thinking I would attempt to get out of the city into the woods as soon as possible. I think I should learn a whole lot more about living in the woods before I do that. (I have a bumper sticker that says "I'd never survive in the wild")
  • Environmentally sound pooping Might not apply to very many apartment dwellers, but you can always "frost a rock" except use your apartment complex roof rather than a rock...
  • Emergency preparedness: try this site. Also, how to create and emergency toilet.
  • I've been planning to get the hell out of the city for quite a while. It's either the middle of the desert or Nikumaroro for me.
  • Problem is, I need guns. I suppose I could go to my dad, who is a Hell's Angel.
  • I'd shit on Chy's lawn.
  • every board I frequent is buzzing with these kind of discussions, about emergency procedures, supply issues, evacuation planning... commendable, but creepy, nonetheless. I'm actually kind of heartened by it - after seeing the shit go down in the Gulf states, and contrasting that with what I've read of Cuba's more community-based evacuation stylee, I think this is great. I think we in the U.S. have a mentality that, when catastrophe strikes, help is going to drop from the sky, and all we have to do is sit quietly and wait for the airlift. It wouldn't hurt us to be a bit more active, make some plans and be prepared to a greater degree on a community level.
  • I don't have a lawn.
  • Well said, housepig.
  • you could auction it off and mail it to someone else anonymously...
  • housepig - hear hear! queso, that's the best thing i've ever seen on ebay. chyren, i am more in awe of you each time you post.
  • This is the shittiest thread ever.
  • Of course, MJ know her Monkeys. MonkeyFilter: As Monkeys, it's highly probable that our shit don't stink.