A childhood belief about bathrooms

For a couple of years when I was about 7, we had to live in the outback (I'm Australian) so my Dad could get work with the local mining company. We rented an old 'house' (more like a shed really), with little by way of indoor plumbing. We had two working taps and what is called a 'long drop' toilet. This basically consisted of an outdoors shed, with half an oil drum (with a toilet seat on it) on some loosly placed planks which rested on top of an abandoned Opal mine shaft. As a kid I was terrified of going to the toilet because (among other things) I believed the mine shaft was actually a portal to Hell and that if I 'went' at the wrong time, the devil would look up, see my butt and drag me down there with all the poo-demons. As I grew older, this developed into a more simple and realistic fear of the planks collapsing and me falling down the mine shaft-'O-Crap and drowning horribly. For years I only went to the toilet at school - and on weekends, I went to my friends houses to 'visit'. To this day whenever I use a modern toilet, in a moment of reflection, I quietly give thanks...