Tuesday, May 30, 2017

I Can't Even

I Can't Even...
By,
Sara 'Zarine' Jessop
… Bathrooms

We all know that I hate camping with a passion and being in the woods is not my thing. Mostly because I get lost. We did make many jokes this weekend about how we should make me an entire outfit out of that day-glo ornage that those new kids were wearing so my countrymen could find me. Also, that color is so 990's that I can't even. Usually I deal with my hatred of the woods of Creathorne by drinking so much that I forget where I am. This year, however, my stomach was not having it and I made the 'responsible' decision to become one of those losers I just picked on last week. So I got to experience the woods, sleeping in my carriage (because despite my insistence that you all pack everything you own and double check everything I was missing a tent pole), pollen, ticks, plebs, and dirt while sober.

Even with all those terrible things I just mentioned that I had to endure, dear reader, there was one thing worse: the bathrooms. We all know what Realms bathrooms are like. Small, dirty, and cramped. I am likely not going to be telling you anything new here, but I'm going to complain anyways because it's what I am good at.

Clearly last year... I had my tabard.

I got the privileged of hosting the Refined Ladies Society's gathering this year, so I dressed nicely. I mean, not in my best clothes, this is ToC after all and I don't have piles of gold to throw away on replacing my good things. But I was wearing a rather large skirt and I carry a lot of things on my person so there are a lot of things hanging from my belt. You may laugh at how much I carry, but I handed out no less that ten bobby pins, five hair ties, and loaned my lighter to at least ten people. (Public service announcement, I won't be replacing those hair ties so next time you need those maybe ask someone who doesn't have shorter hair than most of the men in the Realms.)

So eventually, like all people, I needed to relieve myself. I put it off for as long as possible because this wasn't my first rodeo and I know what Creathorne's portable latrines are like by that point on Saturday night. So I took the dreaded walk down there, thinking the whole time how I wished I were a man, and braved the smells and sounds of what could quite possibly be the grossest place in the Realms. Then I get in there and realize I don't fit.

Are you done making fat jokes in your head? Good. Because I myself fit, but not with my giant skirt and all my drinking apparatuses hanging from my belt. After closing my skirt in the door three times I then had to get the damn thing out of the way. Now, I am always cold, so of course I was also wearing fleece legging as well, so yeah... it took me like a full five minutes just to be able to urinate without anything being in the actual toilet or urinal. Turns out, I can't hold my breath for a full five minutes, so we are lucky I didn't just die in there.

In all of the frustration of the skirt incident, I forgot to check for toilet paper. Fortunately there was some there, but I'm going to let you all in on a little secret, dear readers: There are devices inside the latrines which actually hold the paper and keep it from being on the dirty, nasty floor. Yet there it was, on the floor. Wet with what I tell myself is water from outside. Rain water from the heavens. Seriously, you uncouth morons, that is disgusting and unnecessary.

Then I needed to try to redress myself, which was actually easier than the reverse but still not fun. Trying to put my skirt back down and keep it out of the toilet was quite the task. By the time I did all of that, I literally had to go again.

So I thought for sure that I had the worst outhouse experience of the weekend. Clearly that wasn't the case, for now I hear tell that someone actually smeared feces all over the walls of one of them. I mean, what the actual eff? How inebriated does one need to be to even desire to do such an abominable thing? I really hope the answer to that is really, really gods damned plastered because if someone would do that sober they have an even bigger issue than we initially thought.

I am a fan of partying. This was the first ToC I have ever been to where I didn't get fall down, talk too loud and dance too much intoxicated. I have never, ever been wasted enough to do something so incredibly idiotic, disrespectful and just plain disgusting. That is someone else's property that you literally defecated all over. We all do stupid things for a laugh, but this is so beyond 'not funny' I can't even describe it. Like, it just makes me want to vomit.

So in conclusion, lavatories are horrid enough without people adding additional horrors. We shouldn't need 'Potty Police'. We do need bigger outhouses however for us ladies with large skirts. I have spoken to Sir Sean about larger rooms. He says someone would legitimately need to be handicapped to get one. So my task to you, my loves, is to find or make a handicapped person by next year.


See you next Tuesday.  


Zarine is the proprietor and Madam at Alchimia Lupanar, a magic marshal approved practitioner of medicine, an award winning author, and has 36 years of experience in giving her unsolicited opinion.