Tall Tale Retold

Sandy Longbotham circa 1979

Sandy and I first met at Slack Elementary School in Lufkin, Texas about 1964. She was in the 6th grade and I in the 5th and I thought her very sophisticated and mature. After that school year, she moved away and we did not encounter each other again until 1969 and then only briefly, while cruising up and down "the drag" aka Timberland Drive in Lufkin. We both lived in Austin, Texas beginning in 1971 and that is when our friendship began to blossom.

Sandy was wicked fun and if you didn't watch out, she'd land you both in the proverbial ditch. A fun ditch, always. She and I and two other friends shared a house in west Austin during 1979-80, wherein we delightedly tortured the mailman by answering the door naked, had endless parties, traded wardrobes and boyfriends and generally had the time of our young lives.

Over the many decade span of our friendship, we made a lot of history together. It was inspiring today to remember and write about Sandy. I plan to recount more of our high jinks in this blog for my own entertainment, if for no one else's. Sandy left Earth and her friends behind about four years ago. She will always be missed.

What follows is a recounting of a story that was told to me many years ago by Sandy. Another of my friends is writing her recollection of the story as told her by Sandy and we will compare the 'facts' as we remember them.

The Tale of Sandy’s High Colonic

(Maui, circa late 80s, early 90s)

by Jayne Cotten

The year in which Sandy related this story to me, and probably the year in which it took place, is lost to my memory. As the story goes, she was visiting Maui and had been given a high colonic with an

acidophilus implant at a healing clinic. The practitioner told her that it would take up to two hours to work and to be sure and not venture far from the closest toilet…Because all hell would soon be breaking loose from her nether regions.

Being the Queen of Short Attention Span (among other things), after two hours with nary a sign of response to the colonic implant, she wandered off down the beach and into the tropical sunset evening. It’s many, many hours past the two-hour deadline and still, N-o-t-h-i-n-g I-s H-a-p-p-e-n-i-n-g.

After some time of lying on the beach under the stars, it dawned on Sandy that her moment had come and that if she did not reach a toilet soon, she was going to have to perform the elimination ritual on the public beach! The nearest facility happened to be the Maui Hilton. She rushed past the valets and into the lobby and found her way to the ladies restroom. By this time, she was “sweating nuclear bullets” and knew that she had to remove her clothes immediately. Being a public restroom, there was no lock on the multi-stalled facility. She had to be resourceful and used the waste can to barricade the door from any one else’s entry. Wherewith, she proceeded to strip off every stitch of clothing and lie, writhing and

moaning loudly, on the cold marble restroom floor. Of course, someone came barreling into the restroom door, thinking it to open easily, only to find it mysteriously locked, with loud groans coming

from the other side. That person went away and was soon followed by hotel staff knocking and inquiring as to “Anyone in there? Do you need assistance?” and so forth.

Through the door, Sandy shouted the lie that she was fine, though far from it she was. For by then, the acidophilus “bomb” in her upper regions had exploded and she was glued to the toilet and sweating profusely, in full vocal agony, buck naked in the public restroom of Maui’s fanciest resort. For hours…

The details of her exit from the restroom are also missing from my memory. Instead, I have to imagine her wringing out her wet clothes, re-costuming herself and holding her head up high as she slinked out of the Hilton and back into the tropical night.

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