What is the Toilet Monster?

The toilet monster tormented me as a child.

From a young age, my parents told the tale of woe of all the little children who sat on the commode for longer than their allotted 1.35 minutes. They warned me how my bare ass would be a tantalizing treat for the evil toilet monster, who somehow exists in every rural home.

Not an urban legend, but a rural one

In my adult years, I have met few others whose parents also scared them into spending less time on the toilet, but one thing all of us who heard these tales shared: we grew up in rural areas of Appalachia. I’m sure other areas of the world have similar beasts: the toilet snakes in Florida, the sewer gators in New York. But, different from these plausible creatures, the toilet monster does not have a specific form or shape. His color, his teeth, his number of eyes, are all left to the wilds of the child’s imagination.

What is the toilet monster?

The toilet monster lives in your septic tank. If you’re on a sewer or use an outhouse, you may not have to worry as much about this particular cryptid. (You probably contend with other creatures.) When anyone in the household squats down to use the facilities, they unknowingly lure the monster out of his stinky cave and up through the pipes. Everyone who takes the risk of using an indoor toilet must finish their business quickly before the monster can make his way to the surface.

If you are having a particularly bad day, or if you decide to use the throne as a library seat, you become prey to this despicable plumbing beast. And, as my parents described to me in great detail, once you’re in the monster’s clutches, there’s no escape. He reaches up and grabs you in your most vulnerable areas and pulls you down into the toilet. Stuck in his clenches, you’re wrenched through the pipes, into the septic tank, where you die a grotesque death on the fumes of your family’s farts.

I really want to know that there are plenty of others whose parents told these tales. I would appreciate any validity that my childhood was remotely normal.

Effect of the toilet monster on adulthood

To this day, I am quick on the commode. A small tickle in the back of my brain still warns me if more than 80 seconds have passed while I’m engaging in fecal transfer. When others spend too much time in the throne room, I get antsy. Don’t they know how they’re toying with their own fates?

So, in case you did not grow up under the advisement of sadistic parents, you now are aware. Be warned, be safe, and most of all, poop quickly.