Aren't You Ever Frightened?

This is the fourth in a series of posts that I’m writing in answer to the questions I get asked the most.

"Aren’t you ever frightened?"

Last week I had the stomach flu. That’s bad enough when you live like 99.9% of the population, but when your “bathroom” is 50 feet up a slope slung with three ropes on the uphill side to help pull yourself up, it’s a whole new ballgame. Pictures don’t do it justice. Those tree roots are the only things keeping the walk from being akin to walking up a metal slide on the playground, in the rain, with no rails to hold on to.

It’s not at all like slipping out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom. I have to get dressed, go down the ladder to the downstairs of the cabin, find the lantern, put on my shoes and gloves (those ropes are super prickly – not meant for bare hands), scoot the deaf dog out from in front of the door, walk around

two corners on the porch to the back of the cabin, and then up the hill of terror.

One bless’ed night last week, I was up there at 1am in the almost dark, battery-operated, green, Coleman lantern in hand. As I stumbled up the hill (I’m not very sure-footed in the daylight, much less in the dark while holding a swinging globe that blinds me every time I look down at it.), I held my breath until I was finally sitting on the pale blue, fly-poop spotted, insulation ring that provides a sort of seat between the sitter and the plywood hole.

I’m really open for any ideas out there to make this seat easier to clean while still repelling frost. There can be no ice-cube, porcelain or hard plastic surfaces to which my semi-warm, bare ass would freeze in January when it’s 40 below. By the way, did you know that poop will actually freeze as it comes out of your butthole? No kidding!

Anyway, back to my story. It was 1am, I finished my business quickly and ambled back down the hill, around the cabin, up the ladder, and into bed. Ten minutes later, the urge came again.

“Damn it!”

Back down the ladder, shoes and gloves on, out the door, around the cabin, up the hill to the outhouse just in time. Determined not to continue this trek to and fro for the rest of the night, or morning, or whatever the hell time it was, in between bouts sitting on the bless’ed hole, I walked up and down the eight-foot board walk at the outhouse. I even jumped up and down trying to get everything shaken down and out. While I was out there in the wilderness with only that glowing lantern to defend myself, I heard twigs crag, bushes rustle, and owls hoot. 

I was a little spooked and started to think about the Jack London short stories that I was reading, where everyone always dies in the end either from exposure, starvation, or being eaten by wolves. The saving grace in his stories is always the fire to keep the hungry beasts at bay. So, I stood out there on those planks and swung my lantern ‘round and ‘round in between bathroom breaks. By the time it was over, I had myself worked up into a pretty good fright, and I practically flew back down that hill, my gloved hand leaving a smoke trail as it slid down the ropes at mock ten.

So, yes, there are moments when I am frightened.