One toilet remains

Cool, drippy (mid 30s)

Today I set out with a new mindset about this toilet ladling business: This was a new day, a new week—a chance to finish the stupid ladling and sponging of toilets, a chance to move on, if only I plugged through the remaining ones.

So plug through I did. I drilled, ladled, sponged, and poured like a pro. And then I drove up to the last unit in camp and tackled its three toilets. I finished two, and opened the last toilet—the very last toilet in camp—to find a dried-up, crusty clump of paper towels and poop.

At this point a moral argument kicked off in my head. And when you spend a lot of time alone in the woods, certain clichés, like that of the angel and devil on one’s shoulders, seem to become more relevant. Maybe it’s because it’s as if they’re actual people, and sometimes, when you find a toilet full of poop, you’d like to have someone to talk to. Anyway, the devil whispered, Just pour in some antifreeze. The toilet’s all dry; the water’s been soaked up by the poop and the paper; all you need to do is pour antifreeze and forget about it. The angel was appalled. And leave poop in the toilet all winter? Seriously, no way, it said, you’ve got to get in there and clean it all out. To be frank, I wasn’t a big fan of either option. I marched outside and got a stick, and started chipping away at it, but the stick was too soft inside, and it broke. So I found a leaky old bucket, and filled it with water, and started bucket-flushing. To my surprise, the toilet flushed just fine, but the clump persisted. I filled and flushed perhaps ten times, and then consulted the moral experts.

Let the water freeze, the devil grinned, the toilet will break, and then you’ll never have to clean up that clump. It was appealing.

No, no, no, the angel protested, pick up the toilet brush and start scrubbing.

What, and have to throw that toilet brush away?

No, wash the brush, then drain the toilet…

It was all too much. In the end, I left the water in the bowl, hoping it would eat away at the clump overnight. We’ll find out tomorrow, in our next installment of The Neverending Story of Toilet Winterization.