That's what Darryl told my college buddies and I, while we were drinking and kicking back at his cabin outside of Delta Junction, Alaska. My buddy Hugh and I looked at each other, then looked at the girls. Thus we knew that we were up for it, but the girls were unsure if this would interrupt the fun.
Nick, always the funnest and funniest of us, tipped the scales by piping up that it sounded fun. This reassured the girls. So we got up from our mattresses and couches that Darryl had liberally scattered about this large one room cabin - not his home, just a spare cabin he let us use - and poured out the door.
"Isn't this going to be dirty?", asked one of the girls. Darryl assured her that it would not be. This was a new outhouse, he'd just built it, but it needed to be moved to some property he had.
Darryl had a lot of property out in the wilds of Alaska. He drove his truck all up and down his property, with a bottle of whiskey between his knees. You can legally drive drunk - on your own land, and he had tons of land. Mostly crap land, most all unused, but land is land.
We helped lift it into the back of his truck, and it was a pretty ugly wooden outhouse. They have Outhouse Races in Alaska each year, and a higher percent of the populace still uses them than any other state. And Darryl was nothing if not competent, and his 80 plus years and constant drinking hadn't faded that. So he clearly made it ugly on purpose, which for Alaska just meant plain and unadorned.
Hugh and I rode up front with him, others piled in the back, Mike drove the girls in his car. As we took off, I asked him what this was all for. Then it was story time.
"This fellow from the lower 48", he said, "bought some land behind mine. My parcel is between his and the road. They built themselves some crazy half a million dollar house, because they wanted a 'cabin' in the wilderness to visit! But then they got to worrying. Their house was not visible from the road, because of all the trees on my land, but what if I ever decided to build a house there? They figured they'd better buy my parcel so they could leave it as woods."
"Yeah, those types do have money to burn.", I said. Darryl and Hugh nodded. Hugh said, "What, you held 'em up for a high price?"
"No more than was fair", said Darryl. "I offered the parcel for six grand, five for what it was worth, and another thousand for a fair profit. Fair for lower forty eighters, anyway. I figured I could do a good deed for once."
"Where'd that get you?", Hugh asked.
"The fellow figured me for a dumb ass, and thought he could drive some kind of slick bargain, and he said, 'I'll give you three!'", Darryl said. "I countered with seven!"
Hugh and I laughed. "How'd he like that?" we both asked.
"Well, he didn't take that too well. Truth is, he got kind of mean. First he told me that fine, he'd take it for six, but when I repeated seven, he said I couldn't do that.", Darryl explained.
Hugh and I winced. We knew that most folks in Alaska were pretty libertarian/conservative on property rights. Even the liberals. We both figured that the lower 48 guy telling Darryl what he could or couldn't do with his land wouldn't end well.
"What did you say to that?", I asked.
"I told him I sure could sell it to him for ten grand, as it was my land!", Darryl said, then laughed and took another swig of whiskey. We were on a state road, but we knew he could drive better drunk than some could sober.
"He hit the roof over that. Called me some names. None that I hadn't heard before, and none that weren't true. I waited till he ran out of steam, then told him that as we didn't have a meeting of the minds, I'd go now, but he could stop by any time he figured he had a spare fifteen grand!"
We were all three laughing over that. Then I said, "Well what's it all got to do with the outhouse?"
Darryl said, "I knew they only wanted the land to keep the trees up, so they'd not have to see the road and they could pretend they were in the deep woods. Every few days then, I've been going out there with my chainsaw and cutting down all the trees and having a guy I know cart them off!"
Laughing still, Hugh asked, "Not for free?"
"Course not!", Darryl said, "But I sell them for a fair enough price. It's took me a few weeks, but I've got the whole place cleared now, well, 'cept for the stumps. It's all kind of ugly looking now!"
Hugh and I, sleep deprived, tipsy for going on three days, were still laughing over all this, and with each new bit of information, laughing the harder!
We got there about then, and sure enough there was a beautiful house set way back, and the ugliest bare field of two hundred or so stumps you ever saw! Except for a patch in the middle of the land that had been cleared of the stumps, too. There sat an old and ugly recliner!
Darryl saw us looking, and slung his rifle over his shoulder. "I had to have a place to sit and rest, didn't I? We can move it, and put the outhouse there!" We didn't ask what the rifle was for, it was Alaska, and he always carried one. And Hugh and I were open carrying our handguns, we being part time bank guards.
That last piece of data had us laughing even harder, though I'd not have thought it possible. This couple from the lower 48, had invested nearly half a million for their beautiful getaway, and now it was all ruined, and all for speaking rudely to the wrong man!
"What'd he do when you started clear cutting?", I asked. "He came out, threatened a lawsuit. I pointed my rifle at him and told him to get off my land. He did, but he came back with a policeman. I said hi to him, I knew him and his dad, and told him to have the guy stop bothering me. He told the guy to stop bothering me, and that's the last I heard of it!"
With the outhouse placed - which we did only after relating the story to the rest and enjoying laughing the more with them - the house was now utterly ruined, as they could now never invite any of their rich friends up, because instead of it being a symbol of their wealth, it would forever be a symbol of how foolish they'd been and what a poor investment they'd made!
"I notice there's no hole.", I managed to say, between drinking and laughing with the rest. "Don't need none", Darryl replied. "I don't plan to be out here much, it's just ain't very pretty in these parts!" Which set us off laughing the more!
"But", Hugh said, "We shouldn't just leave it standing there unused!"
And that's how three cute college girls, four young guys from the lower 48, and one old man who'd lived through the oil boom were all in the middle of nowhere doubled over, falling down and hysterically laughing at this insanely over the top prank!
The girls declined, but all of us guys made sure and "baptize" that brand new outhouse, and there we left it to go back to the cabin and have more drinking, more philosophizing, more midnight canoe trips, more aurora borealis watching and more of the usual fun that young folks have.
And more laughter! At 49, and not drunk, and not sleep deprived, I write this, and while I smile, I don't laugh out loud. But probably for laughing out loud over that for some years, as we repeated that tale to fellow students, family and friends.
It seemed to capture a lot of the craziness and camaraderie of life in Alaska!
Moral of the story: Don't tell a man what he can and cannot do with this land!
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