So, I posted a thread in the Deer Hunting forum about my grandfather's stories of trying to eradicate the screwworms back in the 60's and 70's. But, his best campfire story involved an old outhouse.

When I was around 8 (1976) I started hunting with my father and grandfather on a lease between Kerrville and Fredericksburg. My grandfather began hunting the ranch back in the late 40's. It had a neat, small hunters cabin. Running water came from a creek, pumped to a cistern. The only potty was an old wooden outhouse behind the cabin about 25 yards away. I was terrified of the outhouse. I would hold it for 2-3 days to avoid that sucker.

One day my grandfather noticed I was not too keen on the outhouse so he told me a story about it. He said this story might make you more scared of the outhouse, but it is funny.

He told the story about how back in the 50's and 60's some of the hunters on the ranch were of German decent. A few could speak German and still had a little accent. One such gentleman got up early one morning before the rest of the hunters to use the outhouse. My grandfather awoke to the lights in the cabin being thrown on and the man running around the cabin yelling in German. He finally yelled out in English "SNAKE". A couple of the hunters got the gentlemen to be still so they could help him. He again pointed to his backside and explained that when he was in the outhouse a big snake had bit him on the butt. He explained that when he was bitten he pulled out his overalls and ran into the cabin. The other hunters said OK lets have a look to see if you did get bitten by a snake. When the gentleman pulled down his overalls a woodpecker flew out, covered in S**T, and flew all over the cabin. My grandfather said it took them 15 minutes to catch the woodpecker and by then everything and everyone was covered in S**T.

He laughed every time he told that story in the following years. The story never made it easier to go to the outhouse. Thankfully, the group added on a bathroom a few years later. One of the hunters drew a picture of the outhouse and hung it in the new bathroom, with the caption "Be Thankful!" under it.

So, anyone else have any funny outhouse or hunting cabin stories?

My Grandpa had a three hole out house that were different sizes. It slid sideways so you could have hole that fit you and didn't have to worry about falling in. Dad was a plumber and he and I put in an in house bathroom in when I was in high school. Grandpa never used it as it "didn't fit right".

I like outhouses. Mom grew up in a house that didn't have plumbing. She said big joke when they were kids was anytime one of them went in the outhouse somebody would yell "write your weight on the wall so if you fall in we know how much to dig back out.

About 20 years ago I stopped at a roadside fruit stand on 287 up past Childress somewhere and asked to use the bathroom. Got directed to a 2 holer on the back of the barn and while I was sitting there I got out my pen and wrote "210#" on the wall, not very big. I figure somebody would sit down, understand and get a good chuckle sooner or later.

We have a full bathroom with running water commode, sink, shower etc. at the ranch. I still use the outhouse. A cup of coffee and leave the door open, best view on the place.... looking out of course.

Sears & Roebuck catalog for paper 🧻 kinda slick and stiff whew that’s been awhile ago!

We had a hunter that was scared of the out house. One cold morning he had to go so he chose the woods. When he came back we were all getting ready to go out for the hunt but this guy just stood by the door. He said "I'll sit this one out guys." We find out later that hooded coveralls are the best to be wear when you got to in the woods. He went and when he was done he threw the hood back over his head, well you know what was in the hood.

Now this is a good thread

A few years back, we had a tourist that almost died in a Forest Service campground outhouse up in Island Park. Yes, alcohol WAS involved!!!!

He and his friend stopped to use the facilities. While taking a dump, he knocked his wallet out of his pants pocket into the tank. Being smaller than his friend, he convinced him he could lower him down into it by holding his ankles, until he could reach it and then pull him back up. Lowered the guy in, but his buddy couldn't lift him back out. No one else was there to hear his cries for help, and eventually he had to drop his friend, to go for help. The FS rangers did the rescue, but they had a really hard time keeping straight faces throughout the ordeal!!!

When I was around 10-12, our family went to visit friends of my parents out in the "sticks"
All they had was an outhouse, pretty old from the picture in my memory
I had to "go" and asked where the bathroom was, they pointed to the "little house" out back
I was a little taken aback, I was/am a city boy
So off I go, when I get there and opened the door, I almost changed my mind
There was one hole, no seat of any kind, just a hole in the wood
I had no idea what to think of this being raised in the city with indoor plumbing, but I had to go
So I proceeded to sit down and take care of business
I sat down on that hole, and my butt went right through that hole, I was stuck in that danged hole
I started yelling for help, help did come, but it was most embarrassing

My parents told that story every chance they got, literally until they passed, and they always laughed, along with whoever they were telling
Now my oldest brother still tells that story
I am almost 62 now, and still get embarrassed when it's told
I swore many years ago, I will never go in an outhouse again

I know a guy who was bitten on his goober by a black widow while using an outhouse.

I've told this before, but here it is again.

Had a hunter who liked to hunt a stand that was only about 400 yards from the camp house. The road went right by the stand and we would drop him off in the morning and pick him back up when we came back in. One morning he shot a pretty good buck, tagged it but didn't gut it. Instead of waiting for us, he decided to walk back to the camp and get his truck to go get the deer. While he was back at camp, we came driving by, saw the dead deer laying there, and picked it up. We met him on the road and waved as we drove past each other. When we got to the camp, we unloaded the dead deer, sat it on the hole in the outhouse, and put a cigarette in its mouth and a beer by its hoof. About 30 minutes later the guy comes driving back up and tells the story of shooting the buck, tagging it, then going to get his truck. Said the deer must not have been dead and while he was gone, it got up and ran off. He wanted us to go help him look for it. We told him to go get a roll of TP from the outhouse so we could mark the trail. I thought he was going to have a runaway when he opened that door and saw his buck sitting on the crapper.

Great granddad had an outhouse and always said you had to wad up and roll a page in your hands to soften them up.
I never used one.

The Sisterdale lease had an out house when we got it. And we built another one when that one fell over. They both had Daddy long legs that would crawl on your bum if you camped out in there. Our oldest salesman would wear a purple sweater for hunting. We called him "Purple Bear". The sounds he would make in the middle of the night when those Daddy long legs would start to crawling.

No funny stories I can remember but my grandparents had an outhouse till the mid 60's. It was about 50 yards from the house and I can remember using it a few times. I hunted on a lease in Atascosa County that had a really old outhouse on it back in the 80's. It was still in use until about 5 yrs ago.

My dad told this story as if it was true.
A hitchhiker stopped by the house and was given a meal. Afterwards he asked where the restroom was, and he was pointed to the outhouse behind the house. The hitchhiker was gone for quiet a while before they went to check on him.
When they found him, he was digging in the outhouse hole with a long stick. They ask him what in the world was he doing that for. The hitchhiker said that he had dropped his jacket in the hole, and he was trying to fish it out. They explained that the jacket was ruined, and he should just leave it there. He said that it was on old wore out jacket and that he really did not care to get it back, he just wanted the sandwich that was in the pocket.

we had an out house until I was about 5, I hated to have to go after dark

Some of my girls' favorite stories center on the outhouse at deer camp.

Wasn't funny at the time but is now. I was about 6 or 7 years old and had to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night. Well when Mom opened the house door we were met with freezing rain and ice on the ground. This is the only time I can remember getting a spanking for wanting to go to the bathroom. The next day I got introduced to the "Chamber Pot" that my grandfather used. They finally added an extra bedroom and an indoor bathroom because granddad was getting too old to make the trip to the outhouse in the mid 60's.

The out house at our old lease in Kendall County was really nice. Made it from an old 5x5 deer blind was framed in angle iron, had a bench made from a Formica counter with a real toilet seat mounted on it. It was nicely done and even insulated. I remember going out to it one really cold night and discovered that in just a few minutes the coleman lanterns heat warmed it quite well and if you hung it down into the hole for a minute before you sat down the seat would be warm too.

I just remember in a real outhouse, you could look at the dodo, and there were tons of big worms and rats.

I remember when my Grandparents got indoor bathroom in the early 70's. No funny stories on my end , heard of Sears & Roebucks and corncobs for toilet-paper tho....

I went on a backpacking trip, back in my Boy Scout days, to Philmont. I remember a couple of the camp sites had outhouses that they called the Red Roof Inn, as most of them had at least 3 walls and a roof covering. Most of the Red Roof Inns were just a plywood box with two holes cut out. I remember settling down in one of them one day and not too terribly long after sitting down, the biggest centipede I have ever seen crawled up out of the hole I was sitting next to. Needless to say I hovered the rest of that backpacking trip.

On a pack in elk hunt in southwest Colorado the outfitter had built an outhouse at the base camp out of pine logs. I came out of there one day and told him I thought that was the finest outhouse I'd ever seen out in the middle of nowhere. He kind of grinned but I told him there was only one problem. What's that he asked? I said that talcum powder in there sure does burn.

Ouchers. Lime is some tough stuff.

I had a deer lease near Breckenridge in the 90's that didn't have a bathroom. The hunters all pitched in and built one about 100yrds from camp so we didn't have to deal with smell and flies. Shortly after completion the land owner complimented us on the new "blind" we'd built and said he'd killed the biggest buck ever on the ranch near that spot. I went back and cut a window into the out house and always took my rifle along after seeing the rack hanging in his barn.

Dad said they used corncobs. I always thought I misunderstood and he meant corn husks. Mentioned it one day and he said "not cornhusks....who would use those?" It was concobs". I'll be honest, I've thought about it many times and the only way I can figure you wipe your [censored] with a corncob is a way I wouldn't be comfortable trying..

I was recently told that they were now illegal in a lot of counties

My gramma lived on a farm along the bluffs of the Missouri River. Yes, she had an outhouse. Yes, she also had one of those wooden box type phones on a party line. When I was a youngster, I used to make sure as best I could that i emptied my pipes before I left the city and indoor plumbing behind. First time I got caught in a bind and had to use it, I remember thinking "if the Sears Catalog is in here to read, why are so many pages torn out." By the time I was done with my business, I immediately knew the answer. The required reading material were the postcards tacked all over to the walls. Some of the younger members here may not know what a postcard is. But they were pretty common back in the day. I'm 72 years old now and don't remember most of the postcards (they never changed). But there was one that read "Why are there so many more Orziz A$$es than there are Orziz?" Didn't understand what that meant at the time but as an adult, I remembered it vividly many times during my working years. That old hillbilly Gramma of mine was a pretty sharp gal.

Some great stories

The one at my uncle's had corncobs and a bucket of water to soak them in. They also had Sears & Roebucks along with Montgomery Wards catalogues. Later on they actually had real toilet paper in them. I remember seeing my cousins cleaning it out one day. They opened the bottom quarter of the back side and pulled out a box of some type and replace it with an empty one. The chickens came running and went wild eating the stuff in the box. I never thought about worms like Huntmaster said were in there.

In Canada we go out and fish remote lakes and all use out houses. One of the guys that went with us about 20 years ago was really spooked about the bear situation. It was after dark and he had to make a run to the out house, lets just say he was followed. About 2 minutes into his sit down he started hearing grunting and growling, then we started hearing screaming to get the cabins attention. When we hit the out house door it was more than he could take and his screaming went up a few octaves. We couldn't hold it anymore and busted out laughing, he never went with us again.

Damn that’s funny.....

I took a [censored] in an outhouse that had a chandelier. This was the guys only bathroom, attached to it was an outside shower, his only shower. This was only constructed a few years ago.

The only place to start is the beginning. Lease I grew up on from the age of 5, to 21 had an old school outhouse. Deep hole, wooden bench with a toilet seat over the hole and a bag of lime. Tin exterior siding. My parents instilled a nightmarish fear of rattle snakes in me, so the mental picture I formed was my bare a-- hanging over that open hole and a rattle snake latching on with fangs a foot long. I always got sick at the lease when I was a little kid because the food was good but no way I going to get bit on the a-- by a rattle snake. So I would hold the dump until we made it to Graham on the way home. KN Root Beer drive in was my savior.

Seems that most of our funny stories centered around the outhouse. I finally worked up the courage to actually use it by the age of about 7. It also made a great backstop for me to shoot my daisy BB gun. I had to learn to not do that early in the morning after Dad's coffee kicked in, he didn't think that was funny but I didn't know he was in there. Reading material was Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler & Field & Stream. One day it was noticed that all that was left was Field & Stream. We also noticed that one of the lease members two sons, ages about 14-15 were not around. As I remember they come back, and behold the good stuff was back in the crapper. They were forever known as the Jack Off brothers.

My personal favorite is my first real drunk. I was 15. Opening weekend and I killed the biggest buck and the $100.00 pot. I was feeling like Daniel Boone, Bruce Lee and Matt Dillon all rolled into one. My Dad had gone to bed, I stayed up with the rest of the grown men. One of them offered me a shot of Southern Comfort. I had drank my share of beer prior, but this was my first shot at throwing away the lid and passing the bottle. Looking back, every time the bottle made it's way back to me, it had the same amount in it as when I passed it. I was doing great until I decided to head to bed. I made it as far as the out house. I decided that was good enough and passed out in there. Maybe around 0200 or so, my Dad found me knew, what had happened and just let me sleep it off right there. Yeah, I spent the night in the outhouse.

I can see how the bucket of water would be a game changer.

So are they re-cyclable if you use water or just softer?

First got back ta MN twas driving down road, well traveled..

The corn twas over persons head. Roughly a part 20×20yrds was not in corn
In middle of it stood an outhouse...
A sign read :

Next rest area 20miles...

stopped & took a pic... it got lost whin phone went ka-put...

I had an uncle who passed away this last december from covid. He was one of the greatest story/joke tellers i have ever been around. His outhouse story went like this.................
"This traveling salesman was going door to door selling tonic,this couple invited him in the house, made his salespitch, visited with the couple for a few hours, ate supper then a god awful snowstorm blew in. The couple invited him to stay until morning. He said ok and slept on the couch. About 2:30 am the worst $hit pain hit him and he opened the front door, looked at the outhouse 30 yards away, looked at the snow and thought to himself, damn i dont want to walk in that snow. He looked around and saw this huge pumkin on the porch. He pulled out his knife cut the top out of it, Did his business in the pumpkin, put the top back on and went to sleep. Next morning he left at daylight.
One year later the salesman was back in the same neighborhood, he stopped at this cafe. He sat at the table with all the local guys and they were swapping stories. The salesman told his story about crapping in somebodys pumkin. Then all of a sudden this old guy jumps up runs over to the hand crank phone and says hello Vi this is Si. THAT WAS [censored] IN THAT PUMPKIN PIE!!!!


My uncle was 79 when he passed but he was for sure the life of the party and he could shoot any long gun as good as anyone i have ever seen. RIP BUDDY

Shotsie and Amygirl were down with me at the lease. They did not like the privy. Amygirl had to go in it and Shotsie and I were out in front of it for some reason. Heard an awful scream, the door flew open and here came Amygirl with her pants at her ankles hopping around to beat the band. Had about a 6 inch stick bug in her panties. That bug was hanging on for dear life.

I can see how the bucket of water would be a game changer.


So are they re-cyclable if you use water or just softer?

It just makes them softer. I got warned about double dipping in the bucket at an early age.

We were at our grandpas neighbor either hauling hay or picking corn I can’t remember.
We came up for lunch and me and my brother was outside my brother went in the outhouse and I latched the door from the outside. It had a pretty big gap so I thought he could stick his finger or something in the gap and just unlatch it. I went in the house and forgot about him. About 15 minutes later he comes in the house madder than a wet hen and started running me around the table. Unfortunately he couldn’t unlatch the door the neighbor herd him hollering and let him out. The old neighbor gave me that devil look.
LMAO!

Not an outhouse but in high school we were at a park in Garland and as we were loading back on to the bus, a lady went into one of the port a toilets so i ran over there and put a piece of wire in the outside lock / hasp, hopped on the bus and we were gone. still wonder how long she was locked in there

That's just WRONG

she was with a group, doubt she was in there very long. But i bet she was pi$$ed

Spent one very long night trapped by a pride of lions in an African outhouse. Didn't get out until the guide came looking for me shortly after sunrise.

We still use a "back house" as we call them at deer camp. Worst thing ever happens is the odd encounter with a porcupine.

Yessir I bet so

I have a short one about a port-a-john in the middle east. It was the graffiti inside: "Describe your deuce with a movie title." Absolute comedy gold followed as people would write a new answer when they came in to do their business... like Anaconda, Misery, Smokey and the Bandit, Titanic, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, The Terminator, Black Hole, Bloodsport, Three Amigos, the Exorcist, True Grit... just to name a few.

The list covered an entire wall and was hilarious...well, as hilarious as one of those danged things can be in 135 degrees.

Kry226, No one had "The Longest Yard"???

Oh, yes! There were dozens of titles! It was the most enjoyable visit to a port-a-john ever!

Leviathan, Old Yeller, and on and on...

I'll make fun of myself for a moment. I was about 8 and the commode at our lease outside of Abilene was down. We had a great setup -- a handmade garage connected to a shower and chitter that flushed -- but it was out of commission this time we were out there. Instead, we had the choice of leaning against a tree and doing our business or using the fold-a-pot. Given the fact that our trees out there all had thorns, I took the fold-a-pot option which was a toilet seat on a x-chassis that folds together and apart. The problem was, I didn't fully latch it down when I went to take a grumpy. I did the labor and delivery, but the darn thing collapsed on me when I went to wipe and I fell into my own pile. I never lived that down.

The fun part of that story is that i still hear about it today. My dad passed away in 2006 and I couldn't live up to my end of the bargain at the time on the lease (it had moved to Stephenville) so I sold off my share. We got back on 3 years ago, and I'm still hearing that story from the folks that were on outside of Abilene.

When I even hear the word "outhouse", I think of my first elk hunt in northern NM. It was an extremely wet September with heavy storms and rain most of the trip. My second day I started feeling queasy and attributed it to food poisoning from a convenience store burrito I picked up along the drive to NM. The outhouse was about 100 yards from my tent and I was already wearing a trail to and from.

On the 3rd day it stormed that evening and all night long. I was getting worse - going back and forth to the outhouse so frequently I quit putting on a coat or even shoes. I had to have gone back and forth at least 10-15 times and I must have finally just fallen asleep inside the outhouse. I was awakened early the next morning when one of the guides opened the door.

So my outhouse story is that I spent the night in one. But that was my first elk hunt and despite being too sick to hunt the full week, it was so incredible that I actually have a fond memory of that outhouse. I even kept a picture of it - from the outside of course - and I will see it again on my 2021 elk hunt.

Postscript - turned out that I had picked up a rare parasite that it later took a hospital visit to diagnose and cure. But it took me forever to get home with all the stops I had to make and I remember wishing for the sight of that outhouse many times when the urge hit me and there was not a town in sight.

Now, that's a shi*** story.

Not a outhouse or hunting cabin story but close ....

We were sleeping over in small zinc fishing cabins on the banks of the Vaal River. The cabins had army-style stretchers and mattresses in them and that was it. No other furnishing of any sort and no electricity. There was a loud echo in the cabin if you made any noise in there. My late dad and 3 of his friends slept in the one cabin and the kids slept in the one next door.

When bedtime came there was a race to fall asleep in the adults cabin. All 4 adults were champion snorers so if 3 of the adults fell asleep then, given the loud snoring and echo in the cabin, there was little chance of the 4th person falling asleep. After half and hour of tossing and turning and inability to sleep in the continuous crescendo of surround-sound snoring Uncle Lucky decided he had to do something about it. In the pitch-dark he carefully felt for the zinc wall of the cabin and, having orientated himself, wound up and slapped the zinc wall as hard as he could. Twice. Pandemonium broke out as the 3 snorers got shocked out of their slumber and tried to make sense of the noise. While they discussed and debated what might have happened Uncle Lucky drifted off to sleep. Pretty soon the cabin reverberated with loud snoring once again. My dad lost out this time. Unable to sleep, he eventually realised that Uncle Lucky had been very quiet after they had been rudely awakened by the earlier banging and he realised what Uncle Lucky had done. It was a good and simple plan and he decided to use it himself. However, upon taking a mighty swing, my dad's sizeable open hand, en route to the zinc wall of the cabin, connected with considerable force with the side of Uncle Michael's face as he had also been battling to sleep and had unfortunately sat up in his bed at just the wrong time.

Sounds like Uncle Michael might have gotten put to sleep by your dad!!

Almost. It was a TKO after he took a horizontal eight count!

Sadly, Uncle Lucky is the only person from the adult cabin still alive today. I hunted francolin and spurfowl with Uncle Lucky last year and he retold the above story and gave us all a good laugh.

Not me, but I was there to witness the aftermath.

Was on a lease in San Saba several years ago, and we had an outhouse. Of course, the daddy long legs spiders loved the thing when the weather would cool off because the morning sun warmed it up before anything else they could find. So they would congregate in it. Well, one of the lease members got up, extremely hung over, one morning well before daylight. The urge hit so he headed to the outhouse. About 15 minutes later he comes out, pants around his ankles, stumbling, tripping, cussing and screaming up a storm. Mad, not scared.

Seems there were a lot of the spiders in there that particular morning. Being dark he had no idea just how many. As he sat in the cool outhouse, the heat from his body rose, and the spiders gravitated to the underside of the roof to soak up the heat. They evidently did so, clinging to one another until the weight of the mass got to be too much for the those few clinging to the roof itself. What followed was a massive ball of daddy long leg spiders dropping on the guy while he was mid-movement. He literally wanted to burn the outhouse to the ground that morning.

I grew up in the country directly on the St Lawrence river. One of the camps on our property had a older fella with 8 children. He would sit in this outhouse with the door open reading the paper for hours every Morning over looking the river. He was such a fixture that everyone who passed by on the river would yell and wave to him and he would wave and call back while he was sitting there.

When I was in middle school we had a lease in Blanco county, It was my Dad and I, a 20 something couple, and a family of 3. The family of 3's child was a girl I went to school with, and she was everything I wasn't at the time. I was small, skinny, and just barely on the uphill slope to puberty. Stuck in that weird world where I knew I wanted a girlfriend, but not sure what I would do with one If I had one.
On the other hand, B was popular and pretty, and there was no question on which side of the slope she was on. We weren't friends, as a matter of fact she wasn't even friendly. But on the lease I was tolerated because we were the same age, and we could commiserate about school and we would play endless rounds of Uno to kill time.
Monday morning rolls around I am invisible, but to be totally fair to her, it never even dawned on me to try and be her friend at school.
So one night we are in camp playing uno, and there is a storm coming in. Thunder, lightning like you never saw, and wind. Oh my God, the wind! Huge gusts (blew over a deer stand that night and a couple of trees).
Anyhow, we are playing that dadgummed Uno, and she is just antsy, wont sit still and I ask her whats wrong and she says she has to pee, but the thunder and lightning scare her. So, I pipe up with I will walk with you, so off we go on a 75 yd hike to the outhouse in this incredible thunder, lightning and wind. we get to the outhouse she goes in and I am outside waiting, watching the light show and trying not to blow away. When right out of a Hollywood special effects department there is a flash of lightning that lights up the whole sky, following by a clap of thunder I could feel in my chest. The way you feel the bass in your chest after a good concert., and a sudden gust of wind that blows the door of the outhouse open. There is B with her PJ's around her ankles, sitting on the throne, with eyes the size of dinner plates.
She is pale white and I am beet red, I mean there is girl right in front of me with no pants!
Not knowing what else to d, my studly 12 year old self reached out and closed the door. A minute later she came out and we ran back to camp and never spoke of it again for 25 years.
Strange thing happened after that, she began to say hi to me in school, sometimes even stopping to chat for a minute or so. Over that next summer I grew 5 inches and put on 30 lbs and by the time 8 th grade rolled around I fit in a bit better.
I moved away during high school, but was invited to the 20 th reunion and went. One of the first people I saw was B, and the first thing out of her mouth was" you remember that time you saw me on the toilet?"
We learned that we both live in DFW, and my wife and I count her and her husband as some of our closest friends.