As it turns out, pretty much everyone is fascinated with van lifers and potty situations. Giving up the luxury of an anytime toilet is definitely a sacrifice, I personally don’t have a strong desire to only use a proper toilet. After spending a few weeks living outside and having outdoor toilet set ups, I actually prefer to “do my business” outside with open air and a view is always a nice bonus. That given its not always practical. I don’t need to go into detail about this, its easy to imagine how often you go pee or poop at home whenever you feel like it. Now imagine your home is in your car, that does not have plumbing. Welcome to my situation. No complaints here, only setting the scene.
I’ve been living in my van ZootBerto full time for two months and 5 days today. Yahoo! Time flies. I’m having a great time so far, I’ve had some visitors, met new friends, seen beautiful sights, and cooked some amazing meals. I have now recently settled for the next few months in Central Oregon. I’m currently living at an airport just a stones throw from the hangar that I’ll be working in. This isn’t one of the huge international airports that you’d typically travel to and from, but a smaller airport that supports an air museum of classic airplanes, local fire operations do training for water tank jets, helicopter training, airshow events, and of most importantly skydiving. I’m parked in the parking lot between two hangars, and I walk the minute across the lot to work when I need to. Otherwise I hang out in Zoot and watch the clouds over the mountains in the distance, read, pick my nose, do whatever anyone does when they hang out at home.
On my third night here at the airport I finally went grocery shopping and got a bunch of veggies to make burritos to have pre-made. I cooked up all the veggies (this is relevant I swear) in two pans. One with potatoes, peppers, kale, and egg. The other with broccoli, cauliflower, and black beans. I mixed this all together at the end in the burritos with some hummus(that I made by hand)and BAM. Burritos. Flavor, A+. Texture, C. The black beans. Immediate regret. They’re unnecessary and kinda of turned everything into a mushy brick. Regardless I’m going to eat all 5 remaining burritos happily, but I now know that black beans and van life might not mix.
Morning after burritos.
I get up and go pee like every morning. I guess I should add that because I am in a parking lot and not the woods If I don’t want to walk 1-4 minutes on a full bladder I have to pee inside the van.( I have opted for a glass mason jar, it holds 2-3 “deposits” and fits inside my boot that lives by the door.) I then started my coffee and quickly realized that Im going to have to poop before coffee today, not after. I’m thinking to myself though that I can hold it, make my coffee- its fine. I have my sliding door open and I can see that the hangar to my left is bustling about. They have 4 of their beautiful little planes out in front of the hangar, the helicopter is pulled out on its trailer, people are walking around chatting. My hangar to the right about 150 yards is closed up, its early still. But I know that my co-workers are awake and probably also beginning their morning rituals, and they happen to be much closer to the hangar than me. When I’m peering over weighing the distance to my work against the pressure in my bowels I happen to see one of the guys walking away from the hangar towards the pilots lounge- the only other bathrooms. Now, I’m getting nervous. If I go to the hangar and someones in the shower or on the toilet, I’m not sure I can wait.. If I have to turn around and walk the 2 min back to my van then 3 minutes past to the pilots lounge, I’m definitely not going to make it. I can book it straight for the pilots lounge waddling past all the random people and pray the bathroom is actually open and that I don’t shit myself along the way.. None of these sound good to me. So I closed the door and decided I needed to make a plan.
I thought to myself, I am a skilled outdoorswoman, I am embarrassed by very little, and I am probably going to emergency shit in way worse situations than this in the future so FIGURE IT OUT.
I thought about my pee jar for a split second and quickly started searching for something else. I remembered that I had a gallon ziplock stuffed somewhere in my pantry basket and I frantically start digging. Coming up empty handed I found a sandwich size ziplock..I held it open and mock held it to my butt and moved on. I had a regular grocery bag but really hoped to find something more contained, grocery bag being the second layer but time was running out, rapidly. I picked up the little ziplock again, seriously considered and kept looking. I caught glimpse of my trash and spied the little square clamshell box that I got yesterday at Safeway. The box contained a French style fruit tart(haha),the box was maybe 4×4 in and had a little piece of gold cardboard on the bottom. THIS WILL HAVE TO DO. So with all the dignity I had left I dropped trow and took a shit in the little plastic fruit tart dish, inside my van, in a full parking lot at the airport at my band new job. After the initial release the panic subsided, but that little box was not big enough. I was able to stop in time thankfully and set the little box full of shit down. I couldn’t help but laugh when I looked down and next to the steaming pot of water I had started for my morning coffee sat a steaming pile of shit on top of golden cardboard, in a little plastic fruit tart container. I laughed first and foremost at myself, because being a human is messy and ugly sometimes. I take simple pleasures for granted all the time and its good to be humbled now and then. And I laughed secondly because my pile of poop looked EXACTLY like the poop emoji without the face, and that was really funny.
But wait, there’s more.
The fucking black beans…
I set the shitmoji box down and I still have to poop. SO- I found the second trash bin treasure, a tin can that not too ironically recently held *drum roll* black beans. YUP. I finished the black bean burrito poop-mergency saga by shitting ALSO into a tin can. (Thankfully I didn’t start with the tin can.) Finally (victoriously), I took all my waste and set it in a paper bag, put the rest of my garbage in with and rolled it up neatly to stay upright, washed my hands and brought it to a dumpster.
Honestly, I’m proud of myself. I took care of business. I did not get a single bit of shit ANYWHERE that was unintended. I was able to acquire everything that I needed in a state of emergency(both physical and emotional haha), and also laugh about this in real time because its actually hilarious.
I have given up many conveniences living in my van but I have gained so much more. Simple living is filled with so much joy. I have time to appreciate the effort it takes to live. I’m positive that I will have many more experiences just like this one, and I can’t wait to laugh about them. I’d also love to get more confident pooping in smaller vessels..weird goal?
whoscaitlin 