Shitting in Holes with Friends

Or I guess you can call it ‘camping’

I have a group of close friends that I have established to be my best friends, whether they like it or not. This group makes me laugh to the point of tears, think harder and enjoy life more than any other people I have ever met. You know those people you can just be yourself with? I found them.

And last summer, we all shit in a hole together.

Growing up, my parents took us camping every summer. However, this type of camping always consisted of us going to a place with running water, proper toilets, and even — the horror! — showers.

We stayed in tents, we aren’t that fancy. But, the trips were civil and I thought that was what camping was all about.

I have since discovered, or at least been firmly told, that this isn’t real camping.

Last summer, my friends took me camping only a couple of hours away. It was at the beginning of the summer when the tightness of the pandemic was beginning to set us slightly free. Everyone wanted to camp or get away for the weekend from their living room couches.

I got into the car with two of my friends and we set off at a decently early time, ready to search for a camping spot.

Now, much to our surprise, or rather — due to a lack of thought, we were not able to find a spot for the life of us. The time was ticking on four hours of searching with a packed car and three girls who were all just about at their breaking point. At one point, I specifically remember trying to bend over backward (literally) to the trunk to get a beer.

The captain of the car, the camp lead we will call her, told us she was taking us to a real camping spot.

“Sara, that means there won’t be any toilets.”

I froze in my tracks.

Was she for real?

I have Ulcerative Colitis, an extremely fun chronic illness to share the intricacies of with all your friends. This means that I would prefer, or rather, require to be close to a toilet at all points of my life.

I was intermittently furious with my friend. She was taking me, or her, to a death sentence, I was sure of it.

She told us that she would alert the two others coming up after to “bring a shovel” with them when they came up that night.

“Excuse me?” The remaining two of us answered.

The tents were up, the beers were out, and we sat in our camping chairs as the sun began to go down. The last two of our group showed up and out came the shovel.

While the boys settled in, my friend took the two of us girls down a path and said that we would find the perfect spot. She dug what I can only describe as a “fecal grave” and instructed that this was where we would do our duties for the remainder of the weekend.

I can’t do it! I whispered to my tent mate, who was also a fan of provincial campgrounds.

“Well you’re going to have to,” she laughed.

Fast-forward to me, 7 a.m. utilizing the grave. Little did we know that we had picked a spot (after a couple of beers, might I add) right beside a dirt bike trail. I was mid-squat over the cemetery when I heard the sounds approaching closer and closer. I panicked and essentially hid in a bush with my pajama pants around my ankles. I had made it through this encounter, but the remainder of the weekend was still to come.

The rest of the weekend is a blur of bocce, beers, laughter, and trips to the grave. At one point one of our male group members found our friendship hole and declared that we, “needed a clinic” on how to construct such a thing. I did not disagree with him. Perhaps I too myself would need a clinic after this weekend.

The last day, I awoke with a stomach ache that could only be brought on from a weekend of camp food and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

“I’m taking the car! I can’t do this today!” I shouted at my friend as she emerged from the tent.

Being the friend she is, she made the drive down the hill to the public toilets. Which, might I add were the most atrocious port-a-potties I have ever experienced in my life.

And you know what?

Did the grave or the weekend bring us closer? I’ll never know. All I know for sure is that shovel is in my friend’s garden to this day. Every time I see it, I simultaneously cringe and smile.

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