The Outhouse

He was trying to impress me, I think. And seemingly the best way to do this was to take me to a friend’s cabin in northwest Wisconsin, away from any semblance of civilization to show off his “fire making skills.” 

He described the cabin as “rustic.”

Ok, I’ll play along, I thought. After all, I’m still in the ‘trying to impress’ phase too. We’d been dating for just under six months, and I was no stranger to the more primitive conditions of life. So I was game. What could go wrong in just two days of rustic living in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin in the dead of winter?

I joked, only slightly non-seriously on the drive up. No shovels or axes in the car, right? No wood chippers at this cabin?

Visions of the end scene in ‘Fargo’ blinked with caution behind my eyes. Without skipping a beat, he assured me that it would make no sense to kill me there. At least not on the first night. Who would he cuddle with?

Ah. Ha. ha. Ha. Good one…? Again, dating a mere six months. Long distance. He in Minneapolis and me in New York City.

…

We arrive after loading the car with long underwear, snow pants, ice fishing gloves, an electric yellow Carhardt beanie for me…and water. Wait, water?

Yes, water. As in, no indoor plumbing. As in, amass number one business in the toilet then flush with a gallon of ‘hauled with you’ water. And what about number two you might wonder? Oh yes, there was a place outside the cabin for number twos. 

The owner of this cabin seemed to draw great affection from the ‘good old days,’ when men were men shooting muskets, building fires and defecating amongst the landscape as nature intended. I believe that in his hearts of hearts, he liked to think the outhouse quite a luxury; a place for a man to relieve himself with speed and clarity of purpose. One evening he even likened it to a spiritual experience. And that, is a whole new world of perspective.

…

When I travel, I tend to get dehydrated. And in consequence, constipated as well (a formidable gastrointestinal add-on).

These symptoms again reappeared on the cabin trip as my guts began to writhe and constrict in constipated agony. I was desperate to find relief.

... 

It was near closing time for the tiny town’s sole gas station, but thank holy sphincter, they had Ducolax. I was well tempted to buy two boxes, but my companions advised that one would suffice.

Ok, I looked - what’s the maximum dose I can take? Three? Perfect. I’ll take four just to be on the safe side. This is over-the-counter stuff, it’s never that potent.

I struggled back into the car, unable to stand up straight. And with painful tears in my eyes, popped four tiny green capsules into my mouth - and with a giant gulp, hoped that relief would soon be on its way.

…

4:00 a.m.

My tummy starts to rumble. My eyes pop open and I’m wide awake. Something’s coming. I lean over to him and say, “babe, I have to go now.” He snaps alert and we briskly prepare for the trek we both hoped we’d not have to take. We put on snow pants, coat, hat and boots. He lights the kerosene lantern and we trod icily to the outhouse.

It’s -10 degrees Fahrenheit and the lantern is our only source of heat.

Either he stayed outside without the lantern and froze, or I stayed inside without the lantern and I froze. Ultimately though, I was in no condition to be there on my own.

As our friend so candidly put it in the morning, there was a going out of business sale and everything went.

…

My boyfriend of six months stands beside me in an outhouse clearly meant for one person, doing his best to see that I am warm and comforted as I lose all liquids from both openings in my body.

He caresses my head as I rest it on his waist. My eyes well with tears as I am propelled in both directions.

More than an hour passes. I am shivering from the stress and cold. He keeps reminding me, “honey, you need to wipe or else it’ll freeze to you.”

Let me pause here a moment to take in that last phrase. “Honey, you need to wipe or else it’ll freeze to you.” Now with all sincerity, I have heard an awful lot of phrases in my life, but that, that is a phrase I never thought I would hear.

…

At least the toilet paper was the soft, two-ply kind. I wipe but can hardly feel a thing. The cold persists and so does my body’s exit.

He tells me stories of his EMT days both to help distract me and convey that he’s seen worse - that needing to fling open the outhouse door to take gulps of air as a buttress against the stink of what my body was violently exiting was not as bad as he’d experienced before. I didn’t believe him, but it brought me comfort all the same.

We went inside and returned three more times. The capsules were clearly overachievers. We were exhausted - my sphincter and his nerves.

Daylight comes and with it, any semblance of shame. Also the mystery. We’ve fast-forwarded ten years as a couple - zero mystery.

But with that, we saw how we reacted under stress. I saw how he selflessly cared for me. We both experienced how vulnerably present we were with one another. And he saw how I reacted to him under incredible duress and pain.

We clung to and leaned on one another without shame. In fact, we were even able to find the situational humor of it all in the moment. To me, this is life and this is humanity - learned and experienced in the bitter cold of a Wisconsin twilight morning in the most unromantic setting possible.

But then again, don’t we in fact gain time, depth and value in our relationships when we drop our shame and frontiness - and show our humanity?

Now I’m certainly not recommending a full frontal outhouse experience as a method of solidifying relationships. Outhouses are built as single stalls for a reason. Privacy and tact are wonderful things.

But for us, it was a very telling and deepening experience - one which we can now joke about and share. Because it is ultimately an absurd and human story. The outhouse story.