SOS Gab & Eti 1.13

Gab and Eti wish everyone to have a good T-day and enjoy your families, if
they are not available, then feel free to go borrow one. Don’t forget to
watch Billy Graham this weekend. Reminder: hold onto those pumpkin pies real
good when you ring the doorbell, they don’t chew so well with sand in them.

Just in case you wonder what Gabriel Orgrease has been up to these last few
weeks, he seems to have got lost on the way back from IPTW in Maryland and
has been spending his daylight hours picking up the tab in Filthy bars and
gossiping with correspondents from The Philadelphia Inquirer. I told him the
press coverage may create a backlash against the industry, but for today he
is King of Shitters and won’t stop yacking. Etidorpha, somewhat less sociable
around the Holidays, has been quietly working on her Xmas shopping. Gabriel
has been buying stocking stunners for his nephews, stuffing a lot of his
quarters in the wall-box in the John. He says it is like roulette only in the
family way. I think somebody is going to get a load of coal this year!

Headline: Feds spend $333,000 on outhouse.

The Associated Press

Delaware Water Gap, PA

Hikers who feel nature calling can find relief in a two-hole outhouse that
cost the federal government more than $333,000.

The lavish trailside bathrooms feature a slate gabled roof, cedar clapboard
siding, cottage-style porches and a cobblestone foundation that can withstand
an earthquake.

The outhouse is without running water and isn’t open in winter.

“It’s a Taj Mahal,” Rep. Joseph M. McDade (R-PA), told The Philadelphia
Inquirer in Wednesday’s edition. McDade, whose district includes the park,
initially thought the small stone house was a restored cottage.

The bathrooms cost between $333,000 and $445,000 -- based on different
estimates from the contractor and National Park Service officials. The agency
spent about $102,000 on planning and design, $81,000 for an on-site engineer
and $150,000 to $262,000 for construction.

“We could have built it cheaper, yes, but we wanted someone coming up the
trail or off the road to encounter a nice restroom facility,” park
superintendent Roger Rector said.

More than a dozen park service designers worked on the bathrooms, which
opened in May 1996 in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, 90 miles
north of Philadelphia.

The toilets are composting models that eliminate water-quality problems. The
capstone porch railings are made of quarried Indiana limestone, and the
quakeproof foundation includes 29 inch thick walls.

Note: I think Roger Rector has to be a fabricated name.

To be continued..... telepathic chickens.

Copyright 1997 Ken Follett
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