Twas The Week Before Turdmas, a Rio Vista holiday poem

by John McCrory

Twas the week before Christmas, all through the Rio Vista hood,

Not a neighbor was walking around, who would?!;

The lawns were all littered with diarrhea and turds,

As Tarpon River filled up with dead fish, crabs, and birds;

The children were sleeping in their putrid beds,

While visions of sewage trucks drove by in their heads;

Moms wearing rubber boots and dads needing naps,

All wondering who is going to clean up this crap;

When out in the street there arose such a clatter,

A sewer pipe break was the cause, spewing fecal matter;

Neighbors ran to their windows, and what did they see,

Ponce De Leon has changed to the Rio Vista Brown Sea;

The light from the moon put it all in clear sight,

Turds to the left, turds to the right;

The city did what they thought they should do,

Quickly sending to Rio Vista a Ghostbuster-like hazmat-dressed crew;

With their skiff in Tarpon River, pool nets in hand,

They skimmed the floaters as neighbors watched from the land;

Sewer pump trucks were needed, and rapid they came,

Each adorned with the Cliff Berry name;

The drivers were sickened at the first sight of it,

You could hear them exclaim “we are supposed to clean up this shit?”;

Luckily from Texas came a much needed part,

The answer had arrived to end this huge neighborhood fart;

Workers unwrapped the new pipe without missing a beat,

Could it be no more poop in our yards and our street?;

The crews got to work putting the pipe into place,

Each with septic on his or her face;

Just twelve hours later, after nine whole days,

The flow was stopped, and gone was the haze;

Neighbors returned to their homes, Rio Vista Falls stopped,

When what would you know, another pipe popped;

The neighbors all sighed at what appeared on the news,

There wasn’t just one sewer break…there were two;

The stench came back, a new street-river churned,

Lines of sewer pump trucks returned;

How could this happen? What could this be?,

And then, hold your breath, busted pipe number three;

So as Christmas draws near we can all hear the cries,

Please commissioners, not another high rise;

Take a good look around at what’s going on,

But first, please, stroll down Poop De Leon;

So as we wait for the commission to make this right,

MERRY TURDMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

*originally posted on Facebook by Fort Lauderdale resident John McCrory