Never a Moment of Privacy

[Martin Hash]

Pee Stop.JPG

Changing pants in mixed company becomes commonplace after four months. Females yell “avert your eyes” when they need to change tops.

Sharing a bottle of beer without wiping off the top occurs after the fifth month.


Everybody has diarrhea eventually, usually not at the same time, so a quick stop with someone opening the door and running down the stairs with a shovel is a common occurrence.

After a late night of alcohol consumption, potential upchuckers are expected to hold a plastic bag to barf into. Woe to the person whose bag has a hole in it.

Lack of privacy extends to the locals: often our little troop would be the center of attention as we attempted to eat a quiet dinner around the campfire. It can be quite disconcerting having a gaggle of voyeurs at mealtime: where they hungry? We were entertaining enough? Was our stuff still going to be their in the morning?

There is a common overland practice: the truck sporadically stops and everyone piles out to relieve their bodily discomfort into the bushes. There are no restrooms in the bush – it’s catch as catch can for the best of us. The intention is that women wee on one side of the truck, men on the other. This works relatively well but after hundreds of days of travel, every person has gotten the side wrong a number of times so we can all recognize each other’s butts – not necessarily a survival skill but sometimes useful when you’re looking for the person who has the locker keys. Farting in a confined space is initially an irritant but similar to butt recognition, eventually you can find someone with just your sense of smell. And, of course, there’s no secrets about whether “size matters” or not… It does.