The man, the myth, the legend: The Peepeepoopoo Man
It was five years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was just a little baby undergrad—a 21-year-old child, really—and little did I know, I was about to get sucked into a whirlwind of shit. I was working as a TA for MAT137, grading and helping out in the most wild and lawless class offered. I was in Robarts on the night of November 22, poring over some old papers, when I heard and smelled something terrible: screaming and feces. It being exam season, those things separately were to be expected, but together? This could be nothing good. I saw a man in a yellow hard hat sprinting down the escalator and two girls sitting at a table absolutely covered in… shit.
They started calling him the Peepeepoopoo Man. The 6ixBuzz comments were going off. Whispers spread between students about who he would get next. Perhaps out of morbid curiosity, perhaps because I wanted to understand him better, I decided to look into the matter. I began leveraging my contacts. My high school group chat was fired back up again; since everyone in boysnastyatfifa was spread out across Ontario, I knew I’d get a good lead somewhere. On November 24, Jonsey at York said that he’d heard some rumours, but I was busy following my lead at TMU. And I was halfway through my third beer at Imperial when I got an alert: the Peepeepoopoo Man had struck again. Jonesy had been right. I had been sloppy, careless, letting him get away with his disgusting crimes. The next day had come and gone with no new leads. I was scrolling on Instagram when 6ixBuzz confirmed my worst fear: the Peepeepoopoo Man was back, and had claimed another victim’s cleanliness. I was sick. But he had gotten sloppy. A camera caught his face. That slack-jawed expression with those lifeless eyes that bore a hole through my soul. It was as if he was looking right at me.
I slept poorly that night, dreaming of sloshing feces in buckets and yellow hard hats. The next morning, the odour of MAT137 was too much to bear. No other TA or professor had ever dared to demand showers and deodorant, but I was the first to put my foot down and put out a memo. With this maniac on the loose, I could not be reminded of him. I’d had little appetite that week and I was craving Junior Chicken. I streetcarred all the way down to Queen and Spadina to sample the succulent morsel that would be my late-night greasefest. As I got off and approached the Golden Arches, I saw him: yellow construction hat and bucket in hand, still empty (thank God) as he was picking up his order—fuel. I desperately flagged down a nearby police officer, and through my stammers, I managed out the words,
“Peepee… Poopoo.”
The cop burst into the McDonald’s and tackled the monster to the ground. From that position, Peepeepoopoo made eye contact with me. I will never forget the first time I saw the face of a serial shitter.
It’s been years since the incident. I’m going for my PhD now, still TAing 137, and Peepeepoopoo Man has long faded from my memory. But all week, something strange has been in the air. Maybe it’s the yellow helmets on the construction workers, or that the smell of the city has been worse. But even in the safety of my apartment, I feel like something is off. The stench of crime is still strong in Toronto.
I think he’s back.