For Your Next Craptastic Day

Everybody has shitty days. They're unavoidable. Maybe everything went wrong; maybe you overslept and then didn't get to shave your legs or wash your hair, so you had to wear wrinkly pants instead of the skirt you'd planned. Then maybe you were late to work because you got in the car and your gas light was on, and then you forgot your keys to the office.

Or maybe you were just in a foul mood and all the shit in your day that is normally fine, just wasn't.

We all have shitty days.

And one time, when I was 20, I had the literal shittiest day.

In my late teens, early twenties, I had the most irresponsible, maniacal, insane, fun, awesome group of guy friends, ever. We were still a bit too young and naive to buy into the whole men and women can't be friends thing (they cannot, by the way, as proven by the number of those boys I made out with as a college freshman), and all we ever wanted to do was drink beer and go camping.

This particular stay started out as any other; the summer was our oyster, and we were going camping.

Now, this is a good time for me to mention, teenagers are fucking stupid. It's just a fact. In fact, anyone under, like, 27 is an idiot; we make stupid choices. It's like we can't help it.

Why do I say that?

Because, this large group of kids - none of us 21 - put all of the beer into the open bed of the one truck driving with a busted brake light.

It's like asking to be pulled over!

Instead of sending beer in someone's trunk, we literally stacked it into the bed of a truck without brake lights. And then we all piled into vehicles and headed towards Estacada, where our intention was to have a big fire, drink all of the beer, and sleep make out in tents.

Cue the sirens (obviously).

Shitty start to this camping trip, detail number one: Minor in Possession tickets.

FUCKER!

Now (and again, this is because I was 20 and therefore a fucking idiot), I was in the pickup truck with two of my male friends, sitting in the middle of the bench seat. I did not have my purse. Or my wallet. Or any identification of any kind. So of course, the police is questioning if and how I even know these two boys, and if I am in the car by my own free will. After convincing him that yes, these are actually my friends on purpose, and no I am not being smuggled into the sex trade, he then proceeds to find the beer (duh, because it was right there, in the open). He makes us get out of the truck and pour all 30 bottles out, one by one, on the side of the road.

For the record, 30 bottles of Bud Light, when you're not of legal age to buy, is like solid gold. This was a very emotionally scarring moment - hence my remembering 12 years later that it was 30 bottles of Bud Light.

Anyway, so then after draining our beers, and after confirming I am intentionally with Devlin and AJ, the officer proceeds to write each of us an MIP.

SHIT!

I mean, really, an MIP is a little like being grounded. You go to the courthouse with your $200 ticket, and they reduce is to $80 and send you on your way. Whatever. But I feel like usually you get to actually drink the beers that earn you the ticket.

In any case, we're having a shitty weekend so far: we've been pulled over, we've gotten tickets, we've been accused of kidnapping. We've basically ruined all possibilities of a fun camping adventure for everyone, since we were the ones with all of the beer. Super. Shitty.

And it only gets shittier!

Everyone decides to meet up at a gas station a bit up the way, to try and decide what we want to do from there. Still camp? But with no beer? Go home? Go home and try to get more beer and then leave again? So many decisions to be made!

By the time we get to the gas station, though, I am about to pee my pants (girls, seriously, we always have to pee). So while 15 boys stand in the parking lot trying to make life decisions, I race into the gas station and ask to use the bathroom. I'm directed to a port-a-potty out back (ew) and head out that way.

And this is where my weekend takes a literal shitty turn.

I go into the port-a-potty, and it's pitch dark; there is no light inside, nor is there any light outside. This is an actual rape and murder scene just waiting to happen. But I am doing a real intense potty dance, so I have no other choice; I yank down my yoga pants and hover as best I can in the pitch dark to pee.

And then there is shit.

Everywhere.

Not my shit. Strangers' shit.

This port-a-potty is FULL - no, more than full, I guess. I can't see what's happening, but I can feel it. There is poop on the back of my leg. And then on my other leg. But then somehow also on my back and kind on my shoulder. I literally do not know how this was happening, because it was pitch dark (which, looking back, is probably for the best), but there was shit everywhere.

And like, one total square of toilet paper with which to solve this problem.

At this point in the story, I am basically blacked out from horror, but I somehow make my way out of the port-a-potty, where one of my male friends is waiting - to pee, by the way, not to see me covered in dookie.

Lucky him, he now has to help me.

And by help me, I do mean he literally peeled all of my clothes off while I cried (how many times in one weekend can this poor dude be set up for a kidnapping/rape/murder situation) and dry heaved, then left me standing naked in the dark while he rummaged through his truck for a tarp to wrap me up in.

So. We're going home now, right?

After scrubbing what I could from my hands and up my arms (yes I said there was SHIT EVERYWHERE) in the back office of this horrid gas station - while naked and burrito wrapped in a tarp, mind you, I get in the truck and demand that the boys take me home. Obviously. Where the fuck else am I gonna go??

Once back in Milwaukie, I stood in a scalding hot shower until my skin burned off, and practically filled the shower stall with bubbles as I worked through an entire loofah and emptied the contents of like 4 bottles of body wash. I had just been literally covered in shit, and had managed to get a $250 ticket in the process. I was never getting out of this shower. I'd burn to death in here. I can't get the thought of poop out of my head, so I will just stay right here and die.

But then when Devlin's dad poked his head into the bedroom as I was drifting off to sleep and said "I heard you had a pretty shitty night," I laughed. Hysterically. Forever. Because it was true; I had the literal shittiest night.

So the next time you think you're having a bad weekend, just be glad you aren't naked in a tarp, after basically having poo flung at you in a dark room, while you try to figure out who's it is and where it came from.

And, side note, it doesn't really matter who's it is or where it came from, if IT ISN'T YOUR OWN!!

This story is hard for me. So feel grateful I finally shared it. I now have port-a-potty post traumatic stress, and yes my fear is real. And valid. I am actually more likely to squat next to an outhouse than go in one.

And never, absolutely ever, will I ever use one in the dark. #lifelessons