Outhouses - January 5, 2012

It was no more than an hour and a half after I put down the computer and went to sleep. To be precise, it was 2:12 in the morning, according the alarm clock. And Anya needed to go out. Boy did she need to go out. It was an explosive event. Three rounds of ever-increasing liquidity.

Happily, whatever it was, it was over after one episode. I ended up walking Anya twice and taking her to the dog park, and it was a pleasant, high-30's kind of day: some sun, mostly hazy clouds. Perfectly pleasant to hang out at the park for half an hour.

It's not that long ago that most folks would have had to do what Anya did: go outside, even in the dead of winter, to relieve themselves. Outhouses were the norm in the USA until World War I. My dad grew up with one. My mom grew up in New York. For a time, they became a symbol of divides between city slickers and country hicks, or between posh and poverty. Now? they're a mildly-off-color source of humor. Unless you live with one.

I was involved about 15 years ago with renovations at the old Eclipse Grange in Thetford, Vermont, now the home of the Parish Players theater company. It had two attached pit toilets, and boy were opinions divided when it came time to decide what to do with them. For some, they were the symbol of all that was real and earthy about the theater out in the country. For others, they stank even with liberal applications of lime. And in midwinter, the draft went right up... well, it was uncomfortable.

I think they ended up with composting toilets. Or maybe they hooked up with the limited septic system available to them behind the theater. I don't remember.

So indoor plumbing was one of the last pieces of our Great Indoors to fall into place, most of all because we really don't want the smell of feces in our house. Heck, we don't even want it in our trash... I make a point of putting the bags of poop Anya deposits in the park trash barrel instead of our covered trashcan. Whether it's through the technology of diaper pails, the tight seal and ventilation that keeps sewer gases from rising back into our toilets, or all the various chemicals and additives people put into their toilet (whether that toilet is pit or flush), we are willing to put out a lot of effort, and to take ourselves out back if necessary, to not live with the stench.