Potty Time

A recent camping trip brought out a few snippets of going potty. Every creature has to deposit their waste somewhere. Bodily waste generally comes in the two forms of which we are all familiar. The Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District serves about 430,000 persons in 24 communities, cities and villages and some town special sanitary districts. On an average day about 40 million gallons of wastewater go to MMSD.  Showing the effect of water conservation methods, and loss of Oscar Mayer, this is about the same average daily flow as thirty years ago. 

MMSD treats both grey and black water. Grey water is from washing, so think sinks, showers; black water is urine and feces otherwise known as toilet water. Our  small camper has both grey and black water tanks. We have not used the blackwater tank, that is the toilet. I have not built up the courage to use it and empty it. I have an extreme level of confidence that the poop geyser in RV, with Robin Williams would be tame compared to what would happen to me. You can see the RV scene here. I have no doubt my geyser would "reach for the sky," as if I met Woody and to "infinity and beyond" as if I were Buzz Lightyear. Heck, it may become a constellation that will have astronomers wondering where it came from for years. 

Something more pleasant than a pit toilet building

State regulations at campgrounds require that grey water be dumped in the toilets. The wife fills a gallon milk jug with the grey water we use to wash our dishes and when gets near full she dumps it in the pit toilet. The nearest toilet at most places we camp is a pit toilet, and in fact we seldom camp in campgrounds with flush toilets. One can be fined for dumping grey water on the ground, but quite frankly, I have not seen another person carrying a container to a toilet building. I doubt they take it home with them. Some campgrounds have a dump station, but others do not. Grey water is not as dangerous, so they say, as black water, and some places grey water can be used for irrigation. I suspect the large chicken plant (Brakebush) between Endeavor and Westfield sprays their waste water from a large irrigation system, as I have seen it and smelled it. It is not a pleasant odor. 

The requirement to dump grey water in the toilet got my wife wondering why there are no regulations against males urinating in the woods. I suppose there may be rules, but nothing is posted to that effect as there is for grey water management. After all, she reasoned, if grey water is bad, so too must be urine. Of course, she finds this totally unfair, as women seldom have the opportunity to just pee in the woods. In any event, it would be hard to police, just as dumping grey water on the ground is hard to police. There are fewer rangers in state parks and national forests. Even busy state parks one hardly ever sees a ranger.

Sunset

But, potty time extends to more than just a camping trip. On our way to the campground we stopped at a Kwik Trip at about lunch time on a Sunday. The Kwik Trip was very busy. I filled the car with fuel, and the wife went in to use the restroom. I then went in to use the restroom, and noticed a line of about four women standing outside the door. The men's room, as I went to use the urinal, did not have a line outside or inside the restroom. When I went to wash my hands, there was a two person deep line in the men's restroom so I must have arrived at the proper time, as I did not have to wait. My wife noted that she waited in an inside line at the woman's restroom. When leaving the men's, I noticed about six women in line for the women's restroom. The line included a mom with two girls, say about 6 to 8 years of age. Another woman was joining the line at the time to make it seven. One girl says to her mom, "Mommy, our restroom has a line, but the men's doesn't." Her mother simply responded, in an exasperated voice of a mother worn out by a long road trip, or having to yet wait in another line for a bathroom: "Welcome to life as a female." Of course, the exasperation in her voice may be blaming her husband for having provided the X chromosome which resulted in her having to take two girls to the bathroom.  

I have seen women use the men's room, and I believe someone suggested to a woman who joined the the line at Kwik Trip to do just that, and she responded she would not like to put up with the smell. This begs the question, how does she know it smells bad? From her male partner or husband, or had she used a men's room before? Men are not necessarily good aims, and the ammonia-urine smell in a well used restroom can get pretty strong. As can the smell of #2. I cannot blamer her. But, I don't know if the women's room smells like roses.

I did notice that the men's room at this Kwik Trip had two urinals and two toilets. My wife reported that the women's room had three toilets. She then, of course, rightly noted the lack of potty parity. She feels that women should at least have equal, if not more fixtures than the men's room. Women, however, do not have prostates that can get enlarged and hamper urine flow, which may then result in an excruciating long time at a urinal. Further, a male's urine has to travel a longer distance, through a system designed more for procreation than urination. 

Of course, there is a problem with the women's line, depending on location it makes it more difficult for a man to get to the men's restroom. Or, think of little boys who need to quickly get to the restroom, while doing what my wife calls the pee pee dance. 

Little girls and women on the other hand seem to have to have no issue. Have you ever seen a little girl do a pee pee dance? Do females have larger bladders, or did the process of natural selection weed out the females who cannot hold their pee? I may never look at potty time at a Kwik Trip in the same way again.