Dear Stuart [old football mate]

[Content warning! If the first sentence disgusts you, please do not read on. If it intrigues you, please continue; but do so at your own risk, and with a sense of humour]

I had the best turd of my life today, and if you care to listen, I will tell you about it.

Let me preface this entire story by taking you back a few weeks in my life to a period where I was reading a book of essays by Sigmund Freud, the famous German psycho-analyst. "What does Sigmund Freud have to do with glorious turds?", I hear you ask. "Plenty", is my reply.

This particlar book, "Five Short Accounts of Psycho-Analysis & The Question of Lay Analysis", was interesting in parts, but not what one would call spellbinding. It was generally to do with the idea of the subconscious, the nature of memory repression, and the question of the suitability of using lay people, meaning non-doctors in this case, to perform psycho-analysis. The two sections that I found the most interesting, though, were those covering dream analysis, which I won't go into here, and infant sexuality, which I will go into.

Freud believed, and I understand it is now widely-accepted, that the sexual instinct is basically present from birth, not from puberty as one might expect. He claimed that common childhood behaviours such as sucking of the thumb, fiddling with the genitals, and the old "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" game - I know you've played that one Stuart - are expressions of this infantile sexual urge. I read this information with mild interest, at first questioning the theory, and then conceding that yes, maybe he was right. The only part that outright surprised me was when he said that defaecation or pooing or shitting or number twos or releasing the chocolate hostage or dropping the kids at the pool, or whatever you want to call it - he actually said that we get a sexual pleasure out of it. Until today, I didn't really undrstand what he meant.

Everybody knows that the most enjoyable turds are camping turds. The explanation for this is two-fold. Firstly, the nature of camping dictates that it is not practical to lay three turds a day; most will only lay one per day, or as few as one per three days, and this generally means that when a turd is lain, it is a full and satisfying one. Secondly, the layer of the turd appreciates the primitive and raw sensation of snapping a steaming grogan off into the dirt, just as the cavemen did; it's the same pleasure that one gets when gnawing meat off a large bone. So the two factors are basically size and environment; but today Stuart, today there was more than that. Yes, today was a religious experience, that much is certain.

It happened high on a sandstone ridge, overlooking the broad grassy valley that slopes away towards the Dunham River. It was around 10 am, I had done the bulk of my morning's work, and I felt an almost imperceptible movement in my lower bowel. Understanding that nature waits for no man, nor his drill rig, I solemnly took the paper roll from the back seat of the wagon and began my ascent of the hill, eyes wandering between the treacherous rocky ground, the stark dry scenery, and the flawless sky.

I found an old drill site - only in the good-old-days would they have had the guts to put a drill rig up this far, I thought to myself - and luckily the 150 mm PVC collar was left sticking from the ground. It was an angled hole so there would be some skid marks, but that wasn't my concern; the God's had smiled upon me, and I fully intended to take their gift graciously.

Lowering my pants, I took a deep breath and sighed, before flexing my knees and placing the estimated position of my anus over the hole, making a small allowance for the backward momentum of the stool. The first 3/4 of the faeces came in a rush, as if it had been eagerly awaiting it's release; like an innocent man from the prison gates.

While waiting for the aftershocks, I again took in my surroundings, eager to savour the moment. My earplugs had dampened the roar of the drilling into a low and pleasing hum that seemed to gently massage my bowels, and the sun was just high enough to shed the first golden light on the high west-facing cliffs towering over the Dunham. Yes this was God's own country, I decided, and He was with me now as the final dregs exited my satisfied arsehole.

It was only as I zipped up my Yakka shorts that I thought about what Freud had said. He was right you know; by the time I had reached the bottom of the hill I was convinced of it. The tension was released from my muscles; I had a small smirk on my face; my legs were a tad wobbly; I felt I needed a cigarette. The troubles of the day had washed away, just as the skid marks on the PVC collar had washed away with a few handfuls of dirt, some extra toilet paper, and a dozen good-sized rocks. Shitting is like sex; no shitting IS sex. Sex IS shitting, in every way. Both are releases; one of sexual tension, the other of decomposing foodstuffs and other bodily waste. Think it through; right through to the end. You know it's true...