Posted By Rich Bryant on February 6, 2009

Dave, my friend and boss of several years ago, was fortunate enough to grow up on an expansive family-owned ranch in New Mexico.  During the summers of his high school years he worked there, assisting their most senior farm hand, Pedro, in maintaining the fences and working the cattle and horses.

One distinctive feature of the ranch was the presence of a still-used outdoor latrine located some distance beyond the main bunkhouse.  This was no ordinary latrine, mind you, as it featured not one, but two seats positioned side-by-side within its confines;  with the line of demarcation between them being nothing more than a veil of murky shadow that was attributable to the juxtaposition of the sole light fixture and a supporting cross-beam.

Over time Dave noticed that Pedro had developed, as part of his morning ritual, the habit of visiting this latrine in the very early hours (so early, in fact, that all was still cloaked in the darkness of night both within and without).

It was already evident from the circumstances of his youth that Dave was given to the occasional prank.  There was the time, for example, that he and some of his high school chums has set fire to a large pile of truck tires behind a supposedly-extinct volcano just outside the city limits of Albuquerque, causing the citizens of an entire city to awake one morning to a profound awareness of their own mortality.

So, it was not overly surprising that Dave would see in Pedro’s morning habit the opportunity to promulgate a bit of mischief.

And so it was, one morning, like clockwork, that Pedro proceeded to the latrine to discharge his … ahem … duties.  Taking his accustomed seat he had no awareness whatsoever that on this particular morning the companion seat, obscured in shadow, was already occupied(!)

Shortly afterwards, sitting mere inches from Pedro, Dave uttered but a single word … “Hello”.

And so did end the tenure of Pedro on that ranch, as with pants still down around his ankles he bolted from that chamber of unspeakable horrors into the cold morning air, headed south and never to be seen again.

The loss of Pedro was an unforseen and unfortunate event precipitated from Dave’s early morning scullduggery, however from that day onward he could never visit the ranch without a pervertedly-mirthful recollection of the day that Pedro met the Ghost in the Outhouse!

Categories: Tales from the Farm Side
Tags: ghost, outhouse