"Did you get the dynamite, Jerry?"

  "Yup. I'm a man of my word, Big."

  "Did ya get enough? I mean I want that building to blow into the next county."

  "You like overkill, eh?"
 
  "Nope, I just like to get things done right."

  The old pick-up truck that was more rust than metal slowly pulled onto the dirt road that led directly to the Jones Farm. Jerry had turned off the headlights. He was counting on Ed Jones and his ugly wife, Alnedna, to be at the county fair showing off their prize hogs. Jerry and Big took losing to Ed and Alnedna seriously and personally. They both figured that Ed had greased a few palms to get that first prize in the Hog Competition. Big knew that his hog was far better than anything Ed and Alnedna could produce. Now he was going to even the score.

  As the truck approached the farm house, they both looked to see if Ed’s ancient car was parked out front where he always left it. The car was gone and all the lights were off in the farm house.

  Jerry drove the truck behind the barn and they both looked at each other nervously.

  "Sure you want to do this, Big?"

  "Damn straight. That son of a gun is always bragging about everything. The best hogs, the best barn...man, he thinks his crap don’t stink, but we’ll show him otherwise."

  Both men laughed as they went to the bed of the pick-up and started gathering the equipment that they’d need to get the job done.

  "This is going make the news, Jerry!" Big boasted as he headed off behind the farm house.

  "Hell, you could be right! It’d give me lots of satisfaction if Ed and Alnedna ended up on the news because of this!"

  Both men giggled like teenage girls at a high school dance.

  Jerry and Big became serious as they set about positioning the sticks of dynamite just right. They ran the fuse line all the way behind the barn and connected it to the box. Before they pushed that plunger that would set off the dynamite, they checked to make sure that no one was lurking around. They didn’t want to get caught red-handed and have their faces all over the news. They were respectable land owners and pig farmers in Orleans County. It wouldn’t be easy to face their wives if this didn’t go off as they planned. In fact, they’d have to go through the bowels of hell if they embarrassed their church going wives.

  When both of them felt sure it was the right moment, they pushed down on the
plunger and waited a few seconds. The resounding blast of the explosive material threw both of them to the ground. As they looked up, Ed and Alnedna’s  outhouse flew through the air like a missile. It finally landed in Ed’s corn field. Both men ran around to the front of the barn. Where the outhouse once stood was a gaping hole in the ground. The back of the white farm house was covered in outhouse sludge. For that matter, everything within 50 feet of the outhouse looked as if it had been covered in melted chocolate. The odor was strong enough to make metal bend, to make a maggot gag and bad enough to make two hog farmers spew chunks.

  When Big and Jerry finally composed themselves, they went to gather some of their equipment, but it  was covered in outhouse renderings. Both of them looked at each other and high tailed it to their pick-up truck.

  Jerry floored the accelerator and he turned in a wide arc and headed toward the highway. Big wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

  "Dang! That was just plain ugly!" Jerry said and whistled through his teeth.

  "Eh, yeah," Big replied.

  Neither man uttered a word during the drive home. When they pulled into the driveway to the farm that they both owned, Big shook his head.

  "What the matter?" Jerry inquired.

  "I don’t think we should have done that."

  "Shoot! It’s a little too late for that now, Big!"

  "Look, Jerry, just keep this under your hat. Let’s pretend it never happened. Hells Bells! If Sue finds out, I might as well shoot myself!"

  "Okay. I’m with you on that. "

  There was nothing about the outhouse incident in the local papers and that was fine with Jerry and Big who had developed quite a sense of remorse about their outhouse vandalism. After a few weeks, both of them figured nothing would come of the incident and  they went about life as they always had.

  A month after the Jone‘s outhouse was wasted, everyone was busy gathering food and goodies for the Summer Picnic for the Orleans Baptist Church of Disciples that was being held at Big and Sue’s farm. Jerry and his wife, Debbie, were helping out getting the barbeque pits set up. It was a perfect summer day and everyone was looking forward to a good time.

  Emery Sumter’s String band was just warming up. People had broken up into friendly groups sitting on picnic blankets, sipping punch and just enjoying the day when all hell broke loose! Big’s oak outhouse flew into the air and landed just behind his barn sending foul smelling sludge all over the back porch of the house, into the stately oaks and all over anyone within 100 feet of the thing. People were screaming and running helter skelter, covering their noses with handkerchiefs and aghast that anyone would do such a thing.

  Big and Jerry just exchanged panicked looks as their wives cried and screamed about how they were ruined.

  To this day, the outhouse feud still goes on continued  by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of  Ed Jones, Big Cranston and Jerry Fielding. Even with the onset of indoor plumbing, imaginative and innovative methods have been found, allowing crap to fly in Orleans County right into the millennium.