Everyone Poops. But not everyone gets arrested for it.

TROY MUSIL WENT out drinking, ate lunch the next afternoon and shat his pants.

Sure, there are finer points to the story, details that mitigate his culpability-he was at an unfamiliar house, the toilet was broken, he tried to hold it-but in this case, the mitigating factors don't count for much. The biological problems were only the beginning. It's Musil's behavior after the accident that caught the attention of authorities.

The trouble started the last Wednesday of May in my hometown of Erie, PA. Musil, an 18-year-old construction worker, had stopped by a friend's house on his lunch break. After feeling sick all day, he decided to try and put down a sandwich because he thought he was better. He wasn't. Ten minutes after eating, Musil found himself in a predicament everyone's been in at least once. Hand clutching the seat of his pants, he was making a mad dash for the first-floor bathroom. The toilet's water was running, so Musil jiggled the handle. Broken. Musil made a last-ditch sprint to the second-floor bathroom, arriving a few seconds too late. Nature had already paid him a visit.

His friend brought him a clean pair of shorts and a trash bag, and Musil quickly packed the freshly caked clothes. He had to figure out a way to get rid of his mess quickly, as he was soon expected back at work. Listen to Musil's account of the story, and it's impossible not to wonder how any of us would respond in his situation. Would you throw a sack of your own poop in somebody else's kitchen garbage can? Doubtful-that's just wrong. Musil thought so too. So he grabbed the plastic sack and heaved it into his maroon Honda Accord. It was time to put his dirty little secret to rest.

He could have taken it to a dumpster. He should have taken it to a dumpster. Instead, he chucked the bag over a barbed-wire fence, effectively turning an embarrassing situation into a criminal undertaking. Thinking he'd seen the end of it, Musil drove off. That was before he learned a fateful lesson: If you're going to toss your squishy, stained shorts over a barbed-wire fence, you need to remove everything from the pockets first. Musil says he had forgotten about his friend's house keys (or a picture that had fallen from a keychain, according to a differing account relayed by police) and his friend wanted them back. A day after disposing of his forensic evidence, the teenager returned to scale the fence's side.

A man cutting grass on the property spotted Musil and called the police. Turns out the fence protects the Sigsbee Reservoir, a 33-million-gallon reservoir that serves some 30,000 Erie residents. Cops converged and found the bag with no sign of who left it. Fortunately for police, neighbors in the area were able to provide a description of Musil's getaway car. With its mangled front end and bumper held up by blue duct tape, it was hardly inconspicuous. Police confronted Musil at his construction site that morning and threw him in the backseat of a cruiser.

What thoughts were racing through Musil's mind as he was cuffed and taken downtown? He'd littered; this much he knew. What he didn't know was that in the morning, police had cordoned off an entire section of the city and re-routed traffic. They'd called in the hazardous-waste unit, a bomb squad, even the FBI. Unsure of what was going on, residents worried their water supply was being poisoned by a bio-terrorist. My own family in Erie told me about the madness, which included a phone call from my aunt to my grandmother, who was advised not to drink the potentially toxic water.

Erie's last bona fide terror scare came in the fall of 2001. With anthrax hysteria at its height, someone sent an envelope of white powder to Mercyhurst College. To most outsiders, it would seem odd that Middle Eastern terrorists would attack a small Catholic school in Erie. The blue-collar town by the lake offers very little in the way of government, defense or economic targets.

But residents knew that Erie offered something of symbolic value to those wishing to terrorize the United States. Erie is home to the man calling the shots against would-be bombers, saboteurs and hijackers everywhere: Dept. of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge. Perhaps the terrorists had given up on Washington, some residents hypothesized, and were now targeting Ridge's hometown.

When investigators in Musil's case probed the bag's contents, they found exactly what they were told they would. It only contained Troy's "soiled" shorts, as the media politely described them. Police let Musil walk away on the relatively minor charge of "defiant trespassing," and he returned to work, thinking all was well.

It wasn't. His boss fired him on the spot.

"He told me he didn't want this kind of attention," Musil later explained in a telephone conversation. That night, he was the lead story on every broadcast news station. By the next morning, Musil was the whipping boy for Erie talk radio. The Erie Times-News put him on the front page. Bloggers had a field day. It seemed Musil had entered local lore as the "Pennsylvania Pants Pooper."

At first, the young man took it all in stride, appearing jovial on local news broadcasts. For $100 or so in expected fines, he'd walked away with the story of his life. Then he went in front of Judge Dominick DiPaolo. The judge didn't find Musil's antics as amusing as the local press did. In late June, a little less than a month after the incident, DiPaolo slapped Musil with a $5000 penalty.

A city on a cash-strapped budget shouldn't have to pay for the excessive manpower needed to investigate an accidental poop, DiPaolo reasoned. The burden should be carried by the 18-year-old guilty party.

The media had more fun with the story. "Teen in Deep Doo-Doo for Soiling Reservoir," the Toronto Sun reported. Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" named him a "top three newsmaker" in June. If Musil didn't come up with $500 a month for the next 10 months, he was going to jail.

Broke and unemployed, Troy Musil was in a world of shit.

"A TV PRODUCER In Erie who was covering the story sent me the news link," recalls David Praeger, a 27-year-old webmaster who lives in a tidy garden apartment in Park Slope.

"I laughed and wrote about it-'Ha ha, poor guy,'" Praeger recalls. "Then, I found out they were fining him $5000."

Praeger is the brains behind PoopReport.com, an odd and surprisingly elaborate web community he created in 2001 as a forum to swap toilet humor.

Over the years, his scatological interest branched out. He became fascinated by psychological attitudes and guilt complexes that make poop humor possible. The PoopReport evolved into a place not just to exchange yuks, but to discuss poop-related news, peruse college dissertations and poop-related art, swap medical advice, even strike up new friendships. The site has spawned an entire subculture, complete with its own slang, inside jokes and storylines.

Nine hundred people are registered users at PoopReport.com; at least 50 of them are regulars who check in a couple times a week. Collectively, they identify themselves as "Poop Reporters" who, um, log on to the site under assumed names. There's the Big Wiper, Ass Phlegm and the General Colon Pow!, to name a few.

Praeger's always on the lookout for new site material, so a terror scare over a bag of crap must have seemed too good to be true. He immediately emailed the Erie news producer, who put him in touch with Musil.

"When I talked to Troy, I found out how bad this is," Praeger reflects. "If you're 18 and working in construction, you don't have that kind of money."

An ad copywriter by day, Praeger remembered an internet campaign from 2002 in which 29-year-old Brooklyn shopaholic Karyn Bosnak pulled herself out of $20,000 worth of credit- card debt by groveling over the internet. Total strangers helped "Save Karyn."

Couldn't Praeger's Poop Reporters save Troy Musil? If each chipped in $5 or $10, they could keep him out of jail until he found a job.

Praeger kicked off the drive with a $10 contribution of his own, and invited Musil on to the site to tell his story. Musil responded with a lighthearted, self-deprecating account punctuated with a modest plea.

"I'm no beggar or anything," Musil wrote. "But this is a lot for anyone to handle on their own."

The response from the Poop Reporters was mixed. Some saw the case as yet another manifestation of "War on Terror" absurdity.

"[W]hat would happen if every teenager who climbed a fence to smoke a joint, drink a beer or just root around was arrested, and the city in which it happened was closed for a time?" wrote a woman identifying herself as "Daphne."

"The Shit Reaper" wasn't so sympathetic. "The dirtbag deserves the fine or jail time-what kind of person throws shitty pants in a garbage bag over a fence?"

I checked in with Musil near the end of July. He sounded concerned but uncertain, even a bit defiant. He told me he was thankful for Praeger's efforts. The regulars, and even Musil's own family, had donated what they could. Together, they raised close to $600-enough to cover at least the first month of his fine. Musil was thankful for Praeger's efforts, but seemed unaware of how or when he was going to be paid.

"I mean, obviously every dollar can help out," he said. "I shouldn't be paying this $5000? I'm going to talk to [Praeger] on the first of the month. That's the first payment. I'm going to talk to him and see if he can do something for me. Know what I mean?"

A few days later, a friend who lives in Erie called with surprising news: Troy Musil was in jail again.

ACCORDING TO ERIE County Prison records, Troy Musil was charged with one count of criminal trespassing and five counts of theft. The Erie Times-News reported that he'd been stealing tools, bikes and other items from area cars and garages. Someone posted a $500 bond for the thefts charges, which Musil will hear at a Dec. 23 sentencing. In the meantime, he's finishing out his 90 days for the reservoir poop incident.

Were the thefts acts of desperation, the actions of a scared young man facing a hefty fine? Only Musil can answer that question. Regardless, his latest actions lost him sympathy with the New Yorker who championed his cause.

"I've asked Troy's brother to return all the money," the curly-haired Praeger says. "The money all went through PayPal, so I never saw any of it."

Though he feels "terrible" for Musil, Praeger says he has "less sympathy" for his actions.

"The very fact that this is a kid who sees a pair of dirty pants and decides, I'm going to throw it over a fence-that's turd terrorism, and I can't support that."

Praeger rarely misses a beat in conversation, which led me to think he'd been through a hundred similar interviews. Not the case. Only the BBC, a few random blogs and online rating services like "Worst of the Web" have paid much attention to his site.

"When your website is 'PoopReport,' the media doesn't want to talk to you."

That may change when Praeger's book comes out. He just inked a deal with independent publisher Feral House, the imprint responsible for such titles as Lords of Chaos (about Norway's death-metal underground) and SuicideGirls. Praeger's book will look at the evolution and manifestation of excrement in contemporary culture, as well as fecal art.

But will there be any more poop martyrs?

"There's a kid in Montana who has [Irritable Bowel Syndrome], or says he has IBS-I'm not sure which," Praeger says. He's referring to Jesse Huffman, the 19-year-old who was stopped by Customs and Border Patrol inspectors for bringing a carload of booze back from Canada. Huffman had used the bathroom at the port where they were taken in, and clogged it with toilet paper. He said he'd used only as much paper as necessary, but officials thought he'd clogged it on purpose. They charged him with misdemeanor criminal mischief. A justice of peace eventually dismissed the charges.

Is this the Poop Troop's next cause?

"I... thought about trying," Praeger says. "But I don't know how well it would have gone over. People are kind of bitter still since the Troy debacle."

Who could blame them for smelling something worse than fishy? o