Getting to the Bottom of this Outhouse

     How weird to spot this outhouse on a lot next to an upscale home in my Denver metro neighborhood. Why is it there? So like the investigative reporter I once was, I decide to get to the bottom of it.     
     I step inside the funky barbecue joint that sits in front of the outhouse. The aroma of smoked meat wafts over me as I ask questions. An employee wipes his hands on his black apron and points to a tattered photo on a tack board, a picture of the building with handwriting scrawled on the back: “Filling station & store on Morrison & Bear Creek Roads 1948.”     
     So this was a gas station seven decades ago that eventually morphed into a smokehouse. But nobody bothered to dismantle the outhouse.     
     I walk outside and try the door of the weathered wooden outhouse with its decorative half moon. Locked. It’s nothing but a quaint anachronism now, certainly not a place I would choose when I have the option of modern plumbing. But metaphorically, I do find myself still heading to decrepit “outhouses" in my life that aren’t as quaint as this one. Places in my mind where I shut the door and perch on personal grudges. Or hang out with bitter hurts. Or retreat to old regrets. Foul-smelling cesspools I should have stopped exploring long ago.     
     Why do I visit these pity pots when I can dismantle them through forgiveness and hope?     
​     Manure occurs, whether I bring it on myself or others bring it on me, but I don’t have to keep it company. And perhaps, left alone, it will turn into fertilizer.