When you drive a car that’s made to look like poop, you know you’re bound to be the butt of a lot of jokes.
But, James Brooks and his son and business partner, Brandon, owners of Brooks Septic in Inverness, are in on the jokes.
If anything, the poop car draws attention.
“Everybody smiles when they see it,” Brooks said on a recent Tuesday morning as the little brown car was being washed for the start of a new workday.
“We have probably 10 to 15 bicyclists or cars stop and people stand next to it and take pictures, and that’s pretty neat. We sit in the office and laugh – we love it.”
Their office is located just off the Withlacoochee State Trail at U.S. 41 and East Arlington Street, where there’s lots of foot, bike and car traffic.
As for the idea for a poop car, Brooks said he saw the car, a red 2004 VW bug, and had the vision of a poop emoji on wheels.
Prior to that, people would stop by the office dropping off poop emoji merchandise, including a slingshot and a whoopee cushion, lighted poop emoji necklaces, anything that was a poop emoji.
“They did that pretty regularly for a while,” he said.
That’s when Brooks thought: Why not go big?
“So, we got the car and sent it to a fabricator and said, ‘Make us a poop car,’” he said.
The windows are tinted a poopish shade of brown, the same color as the car body and the hubcaps and the swirling poop on top.
“Some people think it’s an ice cream swirl, but most know it’s poop,” Brooks said.
A sticker on the back of the car reads: “Chug-a-chug, poo-poo – the ‘gravy’ train,” with a picture of a train.
There’s a framed drawing of the “gravy train” train that Brooks’ wife Tammy drew that won a blue ribbon at the county fair.
James Brooks, who grew up in Inverness, said that his grandfather had a septic business and that his dad at age 14 or 15 would go along on jobs with his dad.
“In those days they used five-gallon buckets,” he said.
James got into the business about 27 years ago with another guy, and then five years ago he and his son formed Brooks Septic.
Brandon’s son, Corbin, 8, said when he gets older he wants to work with his dad and grandpa – and he loves the poop car.
“I wouldn’t sell it for a trillion dollars,” he said. He would, however, fix the a/c and put in a better music system.
His sister, 6-year-old Paislee, added, “I think it’s OK, but you can’t connect your phone.”
When they’re dropped off at school in the mornings or picked up at the end of the school day, other kids laugh, Paislee said.
“They say, ‘Why did you ride in a poop car to school?’” she said.
If you’ve attended any local parades, perhaps you’ve seen it.
“We won the (Inverness) St. Paddy’s Day two years in a row,” James said. “It’s a lot of fun. We dressed the kids and some adults in blow-up poop emoji costumes.”
“We passed out Tootsie Rolls,” Brandon Brooks added.
Much of life is serious, and stuff happens, and as the Brooks Septic owners say, sometimes you just have to do what you can to make people smile.
“We leave skid marks all over town,” Brandon Brooks said.
