By Holly Kozelsky
I spent many hours in planes, airports and Uber ride worried and wondering about how to break the news about the bathroom situation to my friend.
She, my daughter and I were going to spend the long holiday weekend at our family camp in the Adirondacks. I had great daydreams of being comfortable in the large cottage with the nice bathrooms and running water. Of course, I had talked up about how wonderful it all is at camp. My dad shattered my illusions by saying that he was buying us a porta-toilet: The bedrooms in the cottage were all taken, so we’d be staying in the second floor lodgings above the pole barn.
That was a long flight down stairs, and a walk through the woods, to the cute, clean and tidy little outhouse complete with calico curtains on the window and the moon cut-out on the door and, of course, a hand-washing system. But for this visit, overnight lows were forecast to be below freezing, and Dad said we would not like the outhouse in such weather.
My parents are perfectionists and planners. They run the family camp like a five-star resort – except that the guest does not make any choice in sleeping quarters but rather simply shows up and follows the plan. In the past, when I have suggested a change in where I would stay, one of them would explain the entire domino-effect chain of why it was decided who would stay where.
And Dad has decreed that my friend and I would have a porta-toilet in the room with us. How embarrassing and weird.
“This is a matter you are going to have to come to face with,” my sister said, talking on the phone with me while I was in the Uber with my friend, my daughter and the driver.
I was thinking she meant that I should, for the first time, stick by my request of an option other than what my parents had decided. I have attempted it weakly before and failed.
Even though they had the pole barn cabin lodging ready for us, including being heated for the past couple of days, I could explain to them the better option of us sleeping in the ground-level cabin close to the outhouse. They did not realize that my friend and I could sleep in a double bed together. Once I explained that, the lightbulb would go off in their minds; and they would see that moving cabins for us would be the perfect solution.
“Dad has put a lot of thought and effort into this, and he is determined to get you a porta-toilet,” my sister said.
Ooooh, that’s what my sister meant: for me to come to terms with the porta-toilet.
“I think the decision rests with my friend,” I told my sister.
Which would she prefer: Use a weird little toilet potty there in the room with me (just writing that sentence embarrasses me), or walk down a super tall flight of stairs then a considerable distance to the outhouse, all in 31-degree weather?
However, there was no way I was going to bring this up to my friend in front of the driver. Instead, my sister just laughed and laughed and laughed through the whole conversation, and I am sure my friend in the front seat was wondering what I was laughing so hard about and what it was I would have to ask her later.
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I wrote that first part in the Uber (oh, modern technology) that took us an hour from Syracuse airport to meet my father at the Bass Pro Shop in Utica. He would drive us the next hour up into the mountains.
But first, he was going to get the porta-toilet. What a way for my friend to meet my parents, and to learn her fate for the next three nights.
Once the driver dropped us off, and just before my dad arrived, I broke the news about staying so far away from the real bathrooms and even the outhouse.
She laughed and exclaimed: “A bucket! I will not walk out in the woods with bears and coyotes at night!”
Oh, that was much easier than I had thought.
My dad arrived and happy greetings were shared all around. I stayed near the front of the store with our luggage while my father and my friend went off in search of a porta-toilet.
They returned quickly, pleased and excited about their selection. Back at camp, my father had as much fun setting the thing up and figuring out how it works as he has with any project he tackles.
And this is an ending I would not at all have expected, when I started writing this column on the way to Bass Pro Shops and finished it now while back at home.
First lesson: My friend is more adaptable and resilient than I had given her credit for, and she and my father had a ball getting to know each other.
Second lesson, and this is one to share with readers, because a few would find this super useful: The porta-toilet is a fancy system that takes the place of a regular toilet where running water is not available. It is clean and presentable, and keeps your private matters private. You don’t see anything in it. You flush it, and everything goes to an enclosed tank that is easy to empty and wash.
It occurred to me that this thing would be useful to people who have reached the point of life when you have to use the bathroom more but get around less, due to health issues. You could have one right there in your bedroom, and you or a home health aide could empty it out and clean it out the next morning and still not feel as if your privacy were violated.
So from starting out mortified about this whole concept, I can now give you a product recommendation if you need one: Thetford Porta Potti 365. It is 16.20 inches high, comparable to a regular toilet. It costs around $170. It’s not the model my dad got – he bought a shorter one, but that would be tough on a lot of people to get up and down from, so I looked up options online that seem easier to use.
Whew! Not only did I get through the mortifying experience of having to break it to my friend about the bathroom situation (or lack of), but I also made it through writing about it in a newspaper column.
But next week I’m going back to easier, gentler topics.
