The Time I Peed on a Church

I was bored after work today so I Googled writing prompts. I found one that suggested writing about the most boring day you can remember and trying to make it interesting. That's what started this story and then I remembered that something kind of funny happened and thus this post was born.

J and I were in the car, headed from the majestic beauty of rural Idaho to the unprecedented flatness that is south west Oklahoma. To make this incredible voyage of scenic wonder all that more enjoyable, I planned it at the end of a very grueling summer college program that had left me somewhere beyond sleep deprived. For added thrill we were departing from A Place I never Wanted to Go in order to get to A Place I Never Want to Be. J and I decided that packing this much fun into 24 hours would be the absolute most exciting way to start our married life together.

The journey started somewhere around 11:00 pm when my plane touched down in One Horse Town, Idaho. My goal for this tour de bore was to help James drive 1,500 miles in 24 hours from one army base hell hole to another. (I should mention that he wasn’t stationed in Idaho but there was plane trouble and that is where I ended up, I have no idea if there are even any military bases in Idaho.) Oh yes. We’d both been sleep between 2-5 hours a night for the past two months so we figured we’d add a little DANGER to the mix and see if it was possible to remain awake while horrendously sleep deprived and driving through the most boring stretch of the USA I have ever seen. (I have driven through 25 states so I have some frame of reference.)

The scenery for much of the way was nonexistent. I had driven through Colorado earlier that summer (it was a really long summer) and I was very excited to see Rockies again. This is when I learned Colorado’s dirty little secret; there are parts of Colorado that are very flat and have no trees. I was so disappointed. This is what I thought I was going to see.

But this is what I saw. I just dare you to try and stay awake during 24 straight hours of driving through that.

Another thing that is important to note in this picture is the complete and total lack of trees, or buildings or any kind of shelter really at all. This ended up causing me quite a bit of trouble.

For whatever reason when I was growing up people would grumble about humidity and what an awful thing it was and how much better the heat feels if there is no humidity. Well that’s a big giant lie that someone in a very flat, hot, stupid part of the country made up to make those of us who live in gorgeous, green, four season havens, jealous. In reality “dry heat,” also known as Stupid Awful Yankee Killing Heat, makes the air incredible dry. (Gasp?!) It reminds me of the air in my house when the heat was turned on in the winter. Of course we counteracted that with (shocker) a humidifier! Go figure.

Anyways, my throat was dry and horribly raspy, my lips were chapped, my skin was itchy, and my nose was sore. So J and I were drinking water by the gallon in order to stay ever so slightly hydrated. I probably drank a gallon by myself when I realized that I would soon need to relieve myself. I told J to pull over at the next stop.

Unable to find one on our own we decided to consult our GPS and see where the next town was. As it turns out the next town was hours away. I tried to be a big girl and deal with it, but we are talking about a lot of water being consumed. To make matters worse I was still incredibly thirsty and basically as miserable as I could possibly be. I told J that I didn’t care anymore and that I would go behind a tree.

Unfortunately as J pointed out, there were no trees. I started looking around. I could see for a very far distance and there were no cars coming in either direction. But then I realized that they could see me from just as far away so if a car appeared the people in it would most definitely see what I was doing. I had decided to take my chances but then we hit construction. There was still nowhere to pull over, but now I had an audience.

When we finally drove past the construction the situation has become desperate. That’s when divine intervention stepped in to keep me from peeing in public. In the middle of nowhere was a church. We decided to see if it was open and if there was a bathroom there. It wasn’t open but at this point there was no turning back. I decided to pee behind the church.

I am not very skilled at the whole relieving myself in nature thing. So I ended up peeing on the church. I’m a fairly religious person and I felt pretty guilty for doing it. Thankfully I believe God understands that the circumstances were extreme. Normally I would never pee on a building, except T Hall. I would totally pee on T Hall, even though I’m pretty sure my diploma would immediately be revoked and all my records would be deleted. It would still be so therapeutic.

I so wish this was the worst part of the trip but it got worse. More planes were involved and flights were canceled and I ended up camping out at an airport 1000 miles away from home seriously considering if a greyhound bus would be faster than waiting for a plane. To be honest the entire summer was kind of a bust except for the getting married and going on a honeymoon part. I think there are probably some more stories to harvest out of that summer so I’ll probably write more about it eventually.

P.S.

I eventually met a person who lived in the part of Colorado I am talking about and she told me that her family kept an umbrella in the car for emergencies such as the one I described.