Late last night I left the Flatlanders at the River Stage to go home, and decided to stop for a quick pee on my way out.
If you’ve ever been in a Porta Potty late at night, you know how dark they are. Since the P-Mate woman hadn’t had a chance to visit the blog yet, I still didn’t have a free P-Mate. So I assumed the traditional position: squatting above the black hole of human waste so that none of my exposed parts would come into contact with any of the porta-potty parts. It’s a technique most women master at a very young age.
After I zipped back up I unlocked the door, stepped outside and turned to close the door behind me. But wait! Something wasn’t right! My toilet paper hadn’t disappeared into the stinking hole of human waste. It was sitting in plain sight at the top of the hole. I stepped back in to investigate how my toilet paper was managing to defy the laws of gravity.
Well, apparently the idiot who used the Porta Potty before me had put the lid down. And, in case you’ve never noticed, the Porta-Potty lids are black, which means they’re invisible in the dark, so I never noticed it was down. I had peed on the closed lid.
Where did the pee go? Well, it probably went all kinds of places, but upon further investigation I discovered that much of it had rolled off the lid and onto my pants. Nice.
Two questions:
1) Why do Porta Potties have lids anyway?
2) What kind of moron puts the Porta Potty lid down?? Not only is it a useless thing to do, it also violates the cardinal Porta-Potty rule, which is “get in and get out as fast as possible without touching anything.”
On a related matter, it’s nice that they have hand-washing stations outside all the Porta-Potty stations, but the water’s all gone by dusk. Why don’t they just put out those waterless hand-sanitizer dispensers like they have in hospitals?
Don’t ever think we don’t appreciate what you go through to bring us these daily Bluesfest reports!
Sorry about putting the lid down. I thought that doing so reduces odours and the spread of foecal-born disease by flies.
So porta-potty seats and lids need to glow-in-the-dark. And you want to carry your own hand sanitizer.
It was probably someone used to outhouses. It’s good manner to close the lid in an outhouse, as explained by David Scrimshaw.
Robin, that makes it all worthwhile.
David and Malva: I can see it making sense in an outhouse to put the lid down, but not in a Porta Potty at a festival where there is no downtime between users. (But you’ve opened my eyes to the possibility that maybe the user before me was just trying to be polite, rather than playing a dirty trick as I had previously thought…)
Gillian: Yes, good idea on the hand sanitizer. But if they would provide dispensers, it would eliminate the need for them to bring water in AND everybody’s hands would be clean, not just mine. That would be nice. A glow in the dark lid would be a suitable compromise between the well-mannered outhouse-users and the night-blind festival squatters.
it wasn’t me!
that seriously sucks though. At least you tried.
I once peed myself at a concert because I had been AVOIDING using the portapotties too long. Thankfully it was near the end of the show, and it had rained, so I just told everyone I sat in a puddle. URG.
AAAGH! (Runs screaming from the room.)
My husband got me a teeny Swiss army knife key chain that has a teeny tiny RED flashlight on it! So you can find the door lock in the dark without ruining your night vision. Since it is attached to my house key, it goes everywhere with me (except on a plane now, of course.) It couldn’t have cost that much – maybe you can get them at the MEC (that’s where he gets a LOT of stuff).
PS Update on Rockwell!
I don’t think those handwashing stations ever have water in them. I think they just put them out to tease us.
[…] on outhouses, by the way. My expertise predates – by a long shot – my 2007 Bluesfest porta-potty […]
You’re kidding, right? You don’t really believe the person who closed the lid was the idiot. Closing the lid is policy at most festivals I’ve been to. Burning Man for example. Having a penlight or a lighter with you at night is a good idea too. Women hovering over toilet seats is likely the greatest cause of pee on toilet seats. You did clean up the mess, right?