To pee, or not to pee. That is the question.

August 09, 2018

To pee, or not to pee. That is the question.

It all started in the morning when I decided to spend the day at the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum. The museum is a beautiful building that is right where I turned off the highway to head down to my campground - which happens to be on the edge of an active fossil site.

There were many interesting things to see, like real live paleontologists and cool Dinosaur skeletons...

But the REAL reason I went was because they have a theater there that shows National Geographic documentaries all day long for $2 AND it's air conditioned. They also have a cafe in there and over the course of the day I drank approximately 57 glasses of ice cold water.

(Side note ** if you can find a way to watch the documentary simply called, "Jane", do it. So good.)

When I got back to my campsite around 830pm I finished packing up my tent, etc as the plan was to sleep in the car and roll out early in the morning to head to Edmonton. It didn't take long to get myself ready for my night in the Honda Hotel, complete with freshly charged laptop for a couple of episodes of Parenthood before I fell asleep. Fan was charged, screens on the windows, doors locked and one last trip to the out house around 915pm. Interestingly, while I was IN the out house I had the thought that I hadn't peed all that much in light of the amount of water I had drank that day. I figured I must have been dehydrated and all was well. Back to the Honda Hotel I went, just as it was getting dark. I settled in and powered through 3 episodes of my show before the lap top died and I was actually tired. I put the lap top down behind the drivers seat and rolled over.

Uh oh.

I had to pee.

At this point, it isn't really an option. It is pitch black. Like BLACK, as in the absence of all other colours. The fires that have been burning have left the sky hazy and heavy. There is no moon visible and there are no stars. I am deep in the forest at the bottom of a small canyon. There are no other campers near by and there are 3 bears roaming around (not the Goldilocks kind). Ironically, earlier in the day, this shirt came across my newsfeed on facebook...

So that was on my mind, but I kid you not, when I looked out the window, this is what I saw...

Yes, that is an actual picture that I took out my window. Anyways, the point is, it was dark and there were bears and there were no people, the outhouse was 53 steps from my car and I was in my underwear. I checked my clock and it was 12:55am. No problem, I will ignore it and sleep until there is some light (really, any light) and then I will go. At the most, it's going to be 4.5 hours. I can totally do it. I found a comfy spot on my back so there would be no weird bladder pressure points and settled in for the count.

Ladies. I am going to guess that 98% of you have been through the "full bladder" ultrasound procedure. When I woke up the first time at 245am I was at stage one. You know, the stage where you REALLY have to pee, but you're trying to act all cool and nonchalant about it. It's no big deal, it's just a little pee, my bladder and I? We got this.

Back to not thinking about peeing while trying to fall back asleep for a couple of hours. Here's the problem... I dreamed about peeing. That is a very, very precarious line to tread my friends. Dreaming about peeing when you are now at stage two in the full bladder stages is not recommended. Stage two is the "ok, we aren't messing around here and there had better be a bathroom or a catheter in my immediate future" stage. There were a couple of times that my eyes flew open wondering if I was going to be buying a new thermarest. Taking stock of the situation, I realized I was still safe - praise God. By this point I was running through my options. What if I took one of the shoe boxes from my very cool new shoes and put a roll of paper towels in it and put the whole thing in a plastic bag and peed in that? I could MacGyver that whole scenario without moving from lying on my back (benefits of a small space!). Or what if I just opened the car door and peed right at the front of the car? But does human pee attract the bears or repel the bears? (thanks to no cell service in the pit of blackness, I didn't know.) And I knew that if I went that route, I would get to the front of the car and my bladder would panic and do nothing, leaving me virtually naked and still at stage two, with 3 bears probably within 5 feet of me and ready to pounce - and I can't die naked, at stage two, in front of my car - not after making it this far in my journey. No sirrrreee, that is not how I'm going out.

If you follow me on social media, you will remember not long ago, I posted a lovely picture of the moon and the darkness and wrote some very profound words about missing the darkness and how we shouldn't fear the dark. I was an idiot - don't listen to me. Obviously, it was the moon I missed and not the actual darkness. Now I had all the actual darkness you could want and there was nothing friendly and/or welcoming about it.

It's now 430am. It's getting close to some light, it has to be. At this point I took a moment to say a silent word of thanks to my surgeon from 5 years ago that tied up Blanche top and bottom and made sure she is permanently held hostage against her will somewhere in my lower abdomen. (Blanche is my bladder and Eunice was my uterus. Had some lengthy surgeries that saw Eunice kicked to the curb and Blanche taken prisoner. My friends and I gave them names so we could talk about it all whenever we wanted with no one the wiser. Just some background for those of you that are new to my game.) Anywhoooo, lets just say that my surgeon was a freaking genius because Blanche hasn't moved a muscle since. If this was pre 5 years ago, this story would have taken a very different direction...

After all that thinking and reminiscing, I look out the window and see this...

Do you see what I see? That there, is light. By the time I figure out how to get my shorts on without moving and causing any unexpected events, I will be able to at least see my feet when I look at the ground and a tree/bear/out house before I run in to it.

It's the first time I've been thankful that I have virtually no core muscles because there are no unexpected muscle movements causing problems while I wiggle in to my shorts, flip around to find my shoes, grab my lantern and roll out of the car.

First problem - I am now at stage three. The "it's about to be too late" stage and I have just moved for the first time in quite a few hours.

Second problem - I grabbed the lantern and not the flashlight. Bright diffused light is BLINDING in the darkness. Super not helpful. Now all I can see are white spots flashing around and I have no idea which way is which.

Third problem - I can hear things and I don't know what I'm hearing.

I kind of felt like I was the star in a Far Side cartoon.

I stuck the lantern inside my shirt so I could just have a light glow - enough to not run in to anything I didn't want to run in to, and made it all 53 steps to the out house and sat there. Seriously, it took a while for me to convince Blanche she was safe and nothing was going to eat us. I think I was in there for like 5 minutes. I had to hum some Jesus Loves Me just to relax (serious flash blacks to toddler potty training). Finally, the stars aligned (well I assume they did, I couldn't actually SEE them align) and everything was right in my world again.

I survived the death walk TO the outhouse, so going back to the car I was FILLED with confidence and walked all calm and purposeful back to my car - I didn't even use the lantern!! Seriously, total rock star walk once the "situation" was taken care of.

There is nothing better than getting back in to the Honda Hotel, not caring how much your stomach lolls around while you maneuver you shorts back off and then rolling on to your side and bending your leg up to settle in for another hour or so of sleep and NOT dreaming of peeing in the wrong places. A top highlight of the whole trip in fact.

Funny story....

Once I woke up and started on my way, my car peed...