Does Yve shit in the woods?
Just fucking barely.
After I dropped Makaloo off at school this morning, I returned to my car and was immediately met with a disturbing sensation. My bowels required evacuation. And urgently. I was planning to head over to the cafe at a nearby country park to do a bit of typy-typy. Could I make it there? Well, it was either that or shit all over my fucking heated seat, so I guessed I’d have to.
It was an eight minute drive of putting more faith in sphincter muscles than I was remotely comfortable with and, even once I parked, I wasn’t convinced I could make the thirty or so metres I would be required to perambulate to reach the toilet .
I made it to the main doors, but then…crisis struck. The building was closed. There was only one option left. I dashed back to the car, grabbed a packet of baby wipes, then doubled back so I could slip round the side of the closed visitor centre, the situation in my GI tract growing ever more desperate. There were dog walkers to one side and the car park to the other. I was surrounded. I stalked further and further into the nettles and brambles, hoping to reach a sanctuary far from where any sane people would dare to tread. There was no time to think. No time to strategise. I was running on instinct, adrenaline and primal necessity.
Finally I reached a ditch, hidden from the passers-by the best I could tell, and far enough from the beaten track that the discovery of my deposit wouldn’t be inevitable. It was over in seconds, but I remained in my squatted position, hind-quarters exposed, for a minute or two at least, awash with the kind of relief that reminds you how trivial most of your worries are. During that time my gaze landed serenely upon the long, dark windows of the visitor centre. A clear line of sight. Anyone in there could have witnessed the entire thing. And to my back, I realised, the car park still but metres away, the tree cover sparser than I had imagined. A driver pulling into any one of those bays would have come by a harrowing eyeful.
I didn’t care. I could have been encircled by a mob of jeering spectators at that point. This was bigger than pride or self-respect. This was a matter of simple biology.
Once I’d dealt with the aftermath as best I could, I bushwhacked my way back out of the greenery, not back the way I’d come but pressing on until I emerged further along the mainstream route. I’d simply been taking a detour, nothing suspicious about it. And then I kept walking, wanting to put both spacial and temporal distance between myself and recent events.
While I was walking, I found myself repeatedly amused by the idea of a dog unearthing the poorly concealed prize, and returning to its owners smeared in my disgrace. Under many other circumstances this kind of thought would have me feeling terribly ashamed for being such a disgusting inconvenience. How dare I be so irresponsible? But in this instance, there was just nothing that could have been done. I did my very best with the situation I was presented with. If events had unsavoury implications for other parties in the future, well, shit happens.
Forty-five minutes later, I was returning to my car when I heard a couple on the other side of the trees trying to call their dog out of the undergrowth…