One from the vault

It has been brought to our attention lately that we at the Telegraph have gone a little too Pollyanna. There’s not enough reporting of “real” issues, the seedy underside of life in Durango, hairy warts and all. We’d rather turn the other cheek, if you’ll pardon the pun, and take off with a cooler of beer and our banjos down the river.

(Allow me to repeat here, for the record, while not particularly fond of the banjo, I do not see a need for banjo bashing, unless you’re Keith Moon. I’m sure some very nice people play banjo. Like Steve Martin. And from what I hear, it’s much harder to play than the spoons, or even the washboard.)

Alas, I digress. This is not just another cheap ploy to fill space on a sweltering Tuesday afternoon as I border on heat-induced hallucinations. In fact, I wish what I was about to divulge was in fact a heat-induced hallucination. Unfortunately, this tale from the crypt is so troubling, so disturbing, so inexplicably sick and wrong that you may never go into a dark porta potty again.

That’s right – I’m talking about the Vault Toilet Voyeur.

For those of you new to the area and not versed in this stranger-than-fiction Colorado lore, allow me to bring you up to speed. Roughly a dozen or so years back, there was a shall we say “amateur photographer” who got his jollies by voluntarily climbing into Forest Service vault toilets armed with a flash bulb and hip waders. Anyway, feel free to use your imagination to fill in the blanks, but by the time he was apprehended by authorities he had caught more than a few unsuspecting Coloradoans’ backsides. Suffice to say the “news” soon became front page, making Colorado the butt of crude bar-room banter and potty jokes everywhere.

Alas, the majority of us, horrified as we were, chalked it up to what surely was a deviant and isolated incident. (OK, so some particularly shameless individuals also exploited it for Halloween costumes, complete with plastic rain suit and realistic fudge frosting.) But for the most part, we just shuddered and tried to forget.

That is, until late last month when news broke of a similar incident at a yoga conference in Boulder. A woman noticed some commotion in the commode, realized it probably wasn’t the Tidy Bowl Man making a friendly drive by, and ordered security to do the dirty work. I can only imagine it was a bit like the scene from “Alien” when a half-naked dude wrapped in a blue tarp exploded from the abyss and high-tailed it out of there. Needless to say, the sight was a major groove-kill for all those innocent bystanders who had paid good money to spend their weekend blissfully zenned out on a yoga high. (Speaking of which, does anyone else find it ironic that it happened at a yoga gathering? I mean, where else are you going to find someone flexible enough for a stunt like that?)

Unfortunately, we will never know the latrine lounger’s motive, as no one was willing to tackle him to the ground to get an explanation. And his scent (we can only hope) soon went cold.

But the fact is, he is still out there. Sure, this may have transpired hundreds of miles away, but all of us in Colorado could be at risk for a sneak attack at our most vulnerable, whether it be a relaxing getaway in the mountains, rainbow gathering, beer fest or yes, even a bluegrass concert.

Alas, the moral of this is not to be cheeky or bombard you fair readers with bad puns or ruin your lunch (although regular readers should know by now to take us with a grain of salt and an empty stomach). In fact, I’m not really sure what the point is other than I guess it takes all kinds, whether it be plumbing the depths, scaling the heights – or somewhere in between.

But in the meantime, as unpleasant as it may be, it’s probably wise to exercise some caution and take a peak before you take that leak.

– Missy Votel