A Shitty Situation

Literally. There was a day that I fell into shit. A lot of shit. It's funny now, but believe me. At the time, all I could do was cry.
I was 12. Not exactly the easiest time in a young girl's life. My parents say I had baby fat. Me, I just say it was fat. I couldn't wear makeup yet. Or shave my legs. Or pierce my ears. Or figure out how to wear my hair so it didn't look like a rat had taken up residence. Basically, I was an insecure mess.
So this day didn't help.One of my best friends growing up lived in a historical home that was registered with the historical society. All that means is that the house must remain preserved, and that all repairs, additions, changes, whatever have to go through the historical society.
I'm sure the family resented not having total domain over their home, but I'm also sure there's no excuse for what happened to me.
I fell into their septic tank. Up to my neck. In shit. Shit that was sludgy, thick and sticky. Shit that smelled like nothing I had smelled before. Beyond feces and urine and toilet paper. Beyond rot. The smell was raw. Putrid. Decay. Death.  The kind of smell that forces your eyes to water, your nose hairs to burn and your throat to swell and heave.
My friend and I were running through the yard, and the tank had deteriorated so badly and for so many years that alligator grass had grown over top the sewage. Which is why I didn't know I would tumble like a rolypoly Alice into a hole of smelly hell.
I remember not being able to get out. Grasping at the earth, trying to push with my legs. But the sludge was too thick. My friend ran in to get her mom, and they had to drag me out.
Before I knew it, my mom arrived. And she was understandable irate. Not only because of the overall shitty situation, but because they were laughing. That's right, they were laughing. They were f'ing laughing. I still love them both to death, but at the time I'm sure my mom wanted to douse them with their own sewage just to shut their pieholes.
 I sat on towels for the ride home, not quite sure what I'd fallen into. But I was 12. Not an idiot. I knew. I just couldn't accept it, or I'd have been covered in shit AND vomit. And that's just unfathomable.
I remember my mom filling her giant tub with the hottest water I could stand, and her washing me. I realize it's not particularly normal for a 12-year-old girl to have her mother wash her. But it's also not normal to be covered in shit, either. Think about this for a moment. Hair. Fingernails. Toenails. Unspeakable places. All covered in shit.
She'd wash me, drain the tub, rinse and repeat. I don't know how long this went on, but I'm assuming it took a while to not only disinfect me, but soothe my mom's very understandable fears. I mean, seriously. Raw sewage? I can't imagine the bacteria chomping away in that crap.
My mom was so enraged she reported the situation to the health department the next day. And I didn't go anywhere near that part of the yard ever again. It was like the corner of death to me.
So from that day forth, I was not only an overweight, broken-out-faced, hairy, bald-eared, insecure pre-teen. I was also the girl who fell into an endless hole of shit.