The only way they're gonna see anything is if they try to look. So, take it into the trees and then the only way somebody's gonna see your bing bong is if they come out there trying to find it. Privy is a podcast about toilets recorded here from my home toilet. It's where I am now. Yeah, and uh tonight, you know, we're enjoying uh a Coke or a Coke Zero with vanilla here on the toilet. So sometimes you get recording and you just need something to whet your whistle.
So we're going to do that tonight. uh Have a little beverage while sitting on the pot. um It's probably OK. Yeah, we're going to say that. Before we get into it this week, I just want to say a thank you for a thousand downloads. That's not a crazy amount, but here's what I'm going to say. That's a thousand episodes of essentially me talking about poop or poop related things. so, yeah, thank you all for those of you who listen. Thank you for listening.
Yeah. And I hope that that... you know, just continues to grow as we continue to grow a community of people who are good with the bathroom-ing stuff. Other top of the show things, the gym toilet has been cleaned as of I think it was Wednesday of last week. So ah almost a full week at the time of recording. It got cleaned that I did a little rim check. It got it got cleaned thoroughly.
So in my brain, I like to tell myself that somebody who works at the gym there listens to the show and got maybe went and checked it. But realistically, just somebody else probably came along who maybe is a little more thorough than their other cleaning friends. So, uh Jim toilet is cleaned. Awesome. That's cool. Fun bathroom stories this week.
uh My wife uh walked into her bathroom to the sink, our bathroom, to her sink to just a Mondo spider coming out of the little like Overflow drain plug thingy in the in the front of your sink there ah She screamed big city. It was a big spider. I often give her grief that when she says like there's a big spider out here It's really not a big spider. This one was certified big spider.
I'm talking like legs and total situation definitely bigger than an Oreo was the way I explained it to my son Also watching the kids and I had to use the kids toilet. that in our house that we, my wife and I have a bathroom and the kids have a bathroom. Had to use the kids bathroom. And so while watching the kids bathroom, you know, or using the kids bathroom, my son walks in and this like decides to have a conversation while I'm trying to do my stuff.
And he sees me doing a two and he hears it and then he just like. He thinks it's funny and he just runs down the hall and yells how dad has dropped a big chungus, a huge chungus. So that was fun. Nothing like your four year old exclaiming to the rest of the house that dad has dropped a huge chungus. So plenty of awkward pre-bathroom things this week, but those are for another time.
We're going to discuss the... the awkward garbage that gets said about bathroom-ing ah with hopefully a guest on the show soon. yeah, it's privy summer and that privy summer is quickly, quickly approaching its end. It's noticeably cooler outside already this time of year. I love it. ah The cooling off is very good. It's the time of year, you know, we're trying to do some weathering stuff on our house to get it ready for the rainy season out here in the Pacific Northwest. We have a rainy season.
So trying to get those holes patched that the dingus dog has dug and fix some other stuff up so that way she can't get into a big mess this fall. Trapped, yeah, trapping a bunch of hornets and stuff too. But summer is ending and as summer and as privy summer, draws to a close, people are trying to get some last minute trips in.
Whether it's going to summer camp or hitting the beach, people are trying to get those last minute family outings in before school and the busy season for work and weather catches up to us and kind of shuts down all the fun. Those are approaching rapidly.
And uh one of the things that as the weather continues to hold and still be warmer and as kids are still out of school and maybe parents have some more time for vacation from work, one of the things that people are trying to get in is some camping. Going camping. One of those, this, yeah, camping benefits from warm weather. This week on privy, we're talking about how to poop well in the wilderness. Just as with everything, we couldn't just jump right in and start talking about camping.
We have to talk about where does this idea come from? And honestly, it really seems like it should be a lot more simple than it really is. There's the aforementioned Coke Zero with vanilla. But this idea of where camping came from, it should be really simple. Like you think, well at one point Hunter, people lived in tents. And so at some point that just kind of became recreation.
Pretty much, but it wasn't until people began to build permanent residences, particularly in bigger cities and closer to other folks, farther away from nature, that we see people begin to leave those cities to spend time living in the outdoors. And this activity of living in the outdoors is called camping. Or as Jim Gaffigan would say it so well, you want me to sleep out here.
But in the late Victorian area, that's the end of the 1800s for the rest of us, there was this trend known as pleasure boating. Now, pleasure boating sounds either like a very good time or a very questionable act to perform. That's all I'm gonna say. But there would be this pleasure boating and I think it's a lot like what people call going to the lake today, which is really just people sitting on a boat on a lake doing things that they would do on land, but they're on a boat on the lake.
I don't get it, but recreational camping likely has its start in the United Kingdom along the River Thames. where folks would leave, which it's not Thames, I pronounced it Thames forever, but it's River Thames, Thames, Thames. I'm doing my best, British folks. And folks would leave the city for weekends or overnights along the river. And one of the challenges in getting out into the wilderness to do some camping was that old camping gear. was significantly heavy.
And so they would likely begin pretty close to where they were, and they would boat and float to the spot where you would want to camp. So you'd pile all your crap on the boat, and then you would float all of your camping supplies downriver to the campsite where you would want to camp. And one of the folks who is popularized and is noted for popularizing the concept of camping particularly in the United Kingdom, um but elsewhere, is a man named Thomas Hiram Holden.
uh Holden had spent much of his time traveling across the American Midwest with his parents as a kid. And then as an adult, he rode a bike and camped along the way throughout Ireland. So he went on this big bike riding and camping trip throughout Ireland. The dude was an avid outdoorsman. but so people began to pick up on this trend of camping. But when World War One and later into World War Two took off, uh things kind of took a break.
You know, things were a little more bleak and people weren't looking for ways to get out into the woods. They were wanting to stay home. But when when these wars kind of settled, people were looking for reasons and things to do to get away with the kids. And here on privy, as you know, so that's that's kind of where camping gets up to today. Now you got like camp trailers and all these other things. We're going to talk a little bit about that.
But here on privy, we don't just talk about camping for the sake of talking about camping. We want to talk specifically about dropping your trowel. and taking a crap in the woods. That's what we want to talk about. Peeing in the bushes and realizing that maybe that was poison oak you touched. You know, basic living. That's what we want to talk about today because they are honestly less like entertaining. Pooping in the woods nowadays is kind of less exciting.
If you camp at a campsite, there's likely toilets or some sort of amenities there that you can use. They might not be the fanciest of places, but there will be amenities. You know, a lot of places now, they just like ran out of your, which is essentially just like having a hotel room located next to people who can't whatever. Go poop in your year, I guess. People have pop up trailers that have toilets inside them and even a lot of tents. There's good options if you're tent camping.
for pooping in the woods. And if you camp at a campsite, there's likely amenities there as well. And I'd say this, use them, there's no shame in that because as you're gonna see, a lot of these options, like you could say, well, we're going camping, so we're gonna rough it. But a lot of these options aren't great and they haven't improved in the last 200 years. That's all I'm saying.
So, one of the options that you have is you can purchase with money, any number of the thousands and thousands of products that are sold to help you make poop in the dirt. And here's what I'm gonna say. People know that when people go camping, get nervous about where they're gonna go poop. And as a result, there is a very, very thriving market capitalizing on that point, that when people go camping, they get worried about where they're gonna soil.
And so, We have every variety of poop tank that you could put cheek to and do that thing into. These range from simple seats that you put on the top of a five gallon bucket. ah Real quick, I can vouch for these. These are real good. They're essentially like if you've ever seen like a child's regular like potty training booster seat. It's like a bigger one of those.
but you just set it instead of over a toilet, you put it over a five gallon bucket and he essentially just let fly Brown deposits into the five gallon bucket using the seat with a hole in it as a seat. They work great. They do require you, however, to then deal with the turd produced. More on that in a moment. On the other end of the sophistication front are large pop-up Porta potty tents.
Privacy porta potty tents that not only give you a place to produce brown, but a place to produce brown in the woods in privacy. To me, that's a bit much. Like, I'm not saying that you have to use your shame bucket in front of everybody, but just take it back in the trees where no one can see you. As I would often say to my wife when she would get concerned about people seeing in our front room from the street, the only way they're going to see anything is if they try to look.
So take it into the trees and then the only way somebody's going to see your bing bong is if they come out there trying to find it, which they should not. They make compost toilets that will burn or package your leavings to be taken and then put either directly into the soil in the wilderness where you are or taken home to be put into your own compost situation at home. And remember, compost is just piles of dead stuff becoming piles to make living stuff. That's all it is.
They're squatty potties, which are like the five gallon bucket solution, but with an upgrade. ah And that upgrade is usually that they are designed, they're self-contained, they're built in, and that they're like, they function as a unit rather than this like makeshift seat that you strapped onto the top of a bucket. And I should note here, I am a male individual, so... When I have to pee, I do just stand.
And I understand for those of you ladies or other folks who, yeah, that solution is a little oversimplified for some of y'all. And I also unfortunately learned recently, and I say unfortunately not because I'm trying to say that ladies deserve a hard time standing to pee. I'm just saying. that my brain does not fully comprehend the use, the attachment, and the functionality of this product. But it's essentially a attachment to allow lady folks to stand and pee while in the woods. Now, it's cool.
I get why it's invented. That would be so infuriating every time somebody had to go pee and the guys are just like zip, swang, pee. and you have to like go figure out the squat situation. That sucks. Nobody wants to like have that and then also have these goons running around doing what you can't in front of them. But I don't understand and I don't need to, I think, understand how this noise is like strapping on or is it going into a place which I don't like.
Yeah, and so I'm a bit disturbed by these because I don't understand how women peeing works, but I also don't understand how this device attaches for lack of a better or more tactful way to say that. I don't get it. But we digress. There's the age old method of just taking a chaz straight into a bag that you twist up and carry out like some sort of puppy bag. And this brings us to a key, key, key, key etiquette piece. When it comes to doing that chaz in the woods, here's the thing.
You can only leave your poo behind in certain circumstances and only the poo. Now, I'm not talking no pee, just go pee wherever. Well, not wherever, but away from stuff. But here's what's up. You either have to carry it out or leave it. Those are your choices and carrying it out is preferred. But if you leave it, there's a way to do it. And you can't leave the toilet paper. You cannot, if you're going to bury this noise or do whatever with it, you cannot leave the toilet paper.
That is because toilet paper is not an organic material and it does not break down as quickly as it seems it should. So like, here's my problem with that though. When toilet paper friendly with water, It becomes looser than most of people's morals and just kind of turns to nothingness. But for some reason, when you bury that toilet paper with your brown, it causes damage to the soil and animals could dig it up and consume it and could get sick if they ate enough.
So, if you're gonna wipe, put it in a separate bag to be disposed of in the trash. I know it's a little weird, but just do your best to do that. If Big Tony's in the woods and he takes a crap and no one's around to step in it, Should Tony bury his poop? And the answer is yes. And here's why. And more importantly, here's how. The why is, is because while somebody might not step in it today, somebody might step in it someday.
The other thing is, is there are actually organisms that will eat your poop. They are, uh yeah, boo. I don't remember what these things are called. I have it in here in my notes somewhere. I'll find it eventually. But. You don't want them eating yours because it's going to affect the food situation and they're not going to eat something else. It's more like, I don't know. But you're supposed to bury it and you usually bury it in something that is most commonly known as a cat hole.
The term cat hole has its beginnings inside the term bog hole. And these were big, huge holes dug Usually in times of war and other scenarios to allow soldiers to toss waste and other garbage into the bog hole and it was filled in over time and Then they became the term for the holes that you dig while clamping to plop your squat into ah So cat holes and there's rules and ethics on not just how to dig good cat holes but where and and and What to do with them?
when you have filled them with your shame piles. The Leave No Trace Center, which is a center or an organization that exists to help campers and other outdoors folks ah and wilderness explorers be good citizens in the woods they visit. They say cat holes should be dug at least 200 feet from water sources to prevent possible contamination. They should also be dug 200 feet from the campsites and the trails to avoid possible contact.
In an easy way, if you know, like, they do not expect you to just drag this big honking tape measure out in the middle of the woods to measure off 200 feet. Also, most tape measures don't go that big. But the easy way to think about it is to take about 70 paces. And if you're worried about it, maybe just take 75. And here's what I'll say. 70 to 75 paces, that's quite a lot of paces. Like, it's actually quite a lot. And it's a ways out there.
And having trying to take 75 paces, here's what I'll say. I know I haven't followed that I know I've scattered in the woods and haven't made sure that it's 200 whatevers from water and trails and all that stuff. So they also note, and I believe this is a no brainer, but we're talking about taking a dump in the woods. So are we really worried about if it's a no brainer or not? Here we go.
Don't reuse the cat hole once you fill it up because then you're just going to be digging up poo and turning it over and it's gonna be mixed all up. Just dig a new one. So how to dig a cat hole. To dig a cat hole, you need to dig a hole that is about six to eight inches deep. So that's not crazy. And you need to make it about four to six inches in diameter. I would say though, the bigger the hole, the less aim that you have to be doing.
Like the less, when you go to plop your poo, You don't have to aim as much if you make the hole bigger. I read on this one site that if you're going to be out, if you're going out and using the hole as the kids say, you know what saying, using that hole, it could prove you to dig what I would like to patent, the cat trench. As you poop, you just kind of move down the little trench and fill it in as you go.
Yeah, and that way you're digging this trench right when you get there, you have it all ready. um And you have to dig down because if there is enough campers in the area or populations of poopy, here we go. Coprophaguses, ooh, wait a minute. Coprophagus. Coprophagus. Coprophagus. Something like that. But these are creatures that eat the fecal matter of other creatures.
And so if you don't bury it deep enough, these creatures are going to have easier access to your brown and it could uh disrupt the balance, just circle of life, uh or attract unwanted nuisances. The reality is, if you don't want to pack out your crap and your belongings, you're going to need to dig a cat hole. even if that cat hole exists to simply dump the tank or bucket or whatever you have been rump blasting into for your duration of your camping trip.
Now, obviously what we have been talking about is pooping when you don't have a bathroom amenity. Can't stress this enough. If there's a bathroom amenity, it has been dug or it has been put in to service you. So use it and then you don't have to worry about this. If you have a trailer or something and you poop and it has a poop tank, don't dump that. There's places where you dump that noise and you don't do it in the woods. I would also say this. You have a wastewater tank and a crap tank.
If you are a person who does not need the assistance of a toilet seat to pee, I would suggest you take your hose outside and do your business there. It's easier. You're not going to fill up your wastewater tank and all that stuff as quick. And it's just going to be more. It's just it's just courtesy. You know. It's just courtesy. When preparing to dig a cat hole I should also note that you need to read your area's rules for cat holeing. And that is what I'm going to call the uh present tense.
I don't know. Verbiage of cattle is cat holeing. As some climates, the climate will actually not allow the soil to break down the deuce fast enough. They also recommend that you use a single cat hole for each shiz that you take. I think this is a good idea. It does kind of put a damper on our patent pending cat trench, but you know what? Here's the problem. We've all been there, you know, you're camping and you're in your tent.
It's a little cold, but your solace is that you're just under that warm Sleeping bag and blanket you're snuggled up. Mmm. Mmm, but what'd you have for dinner last night? Let's think. Oh, yeah yeah, probably baked potato. You know them baked potatoes are coming off real strong on that campfire yeah, what else we have? Oh hot dog probably roasted a wiener Maybe, maybe a hamburger if you're treating yourself real nice on the camp trip. It's not too bad, know. what's this? Uh it's a new contender.
It's baked beans and the baked beans are screaming and your butt has to fly. So guess what? It's dark in the woods. You have to get up and you have to poop and you have to leave your cocoon of warmth and exit the tent into the great outdoor wilderness. to relieve yourself. And you know what nobody on this great planet wants to do at 2 a.m. in the dark woods, in the cold, with a belly full of diarrhea beans? You don't want to be digging a freaking hole at that time.
That's not the time for digging a freaking hole. So, pre-dig at least a day and a half's expected amount of cat holes. I cannot stress that enough. If you're going to rely on a cat hole for pooping, pre-dig this noise. Nobody wants to be, even if it's daylight, nobody wants to be caught with their pants down at their ankles and no cat hole to drop into. Like, no. You have to have a cat hole ready. Or I guess you could just like, poop and then dig the hole and put it in after.
I guess that's fine. But again, if it's dark, you don't want to mess with that. You want to have... At least night holes. You want to have night holes, Doug. Yeah, because dealing with that is the worst. You can't do you can't bury tampons. You got to pack the tampons out. Ladies and yes, if you're using tampons, you can't leave those. You got to pack them out. It's trash. You can't leave other goodies. Just pack them out. Leave the place as close to the way you found it.
If for some reason you didn't bring wiping material, here's what I'm going to say, camping and taking a dump in the woods. I would love to refer you to one of our earliest episodes where we talk about alternatives to toilet paper. But if you do not seek that out, what I'll say is ferns, smooth stones, and a used corn cob will do the trick. Remember, Frosty the Snowman had a corn cob pipe and at one point we had a corn cob butt wiper. So there's that.
In short, as with all parts of camping, when you poop you want to leave as little behind as you can. We get it. We want to leave it, know, smokey the bear. Only you can prevent forest fires and only you can bury your poo. So if a man takes a dump in the woods and there's no one around to step in it, he still has to bury it because it's the right thing to do. Dig your brown, but more importantly bury it. But some of these seats that we talked about come with some wild situations.
And now it's time for a long, long awaited Hunter's Anecdotes to keep you afloat. I have so many stories about ah camping and being in the woods and the various things our bodies do when we are in the woods. I grew up in Montana, so it's like the prime spot for being in the wilderness. ah And I always remember, you know, my dad and I, we would get up early when I was old enough to go hunting.
uh And I think a lot of times looking back, like, Yeah, I think a lot of times I look back and I'm like, man, I should have got up. Yeah, I should have got up earlier. I should have got up earlier. But, you know, we would get up at like four or five o'clock and drive out to the woods to get to a good hunting spot.
And there's something that happens when you're just like a middle school aged kid and you wake up early and then you like continue to sleep as you drive out to the place that you're going to go hunting. But like when you get out into the wilderness, your body often then goes, hey, you know what's a good idea? Going poop. And I gotta tell you, there's no worse feeling than being in the middle of nowhere bundled up like you got layers on, ready to do some hunting and you have to poop.
There's nothing worse. But one story in particular that I remember is I had to hang cheek over this log and I remember squatting in such a way that I... I know what I was doing, but I squatted in such a way where when I pooped, the poop hit the back of my jeans and got on my pants and on the outside of my pants. And granted, you're in the wilderness. Of all the places you could have crap on your pants, it ain't the worst. But still, it's not desirable. And I just squatted wrong, I guess.
I just squatted around I guess because like yeah, now you got poop on your pants but the problem is, like poop stinks and deer, which we were hunting for, have pretty proficient noses and so now you're just walking around with a stinky butt pants and it just greatly diminishes your likelihood of finding a deer. um Leave it to Hunter to ruin a hunting trip by pooping on himself. That sounds like par for the course.
Another classic when I was in high school my buddies and I they they we would go camping at this spot down by I believe it was I Don't remember what river is probably a Sun River. I don't I don't remember though. I think it was the Sun River But we have this spot down by the river on this guy's property and we, and a couple of the guys would post up camp there. And I remember this one night, you know, we're all asleep and we sleep up in the tent and we got the tent thing going.
But the, so the story has a few things that were just legendary, but the first was the poop situation. So somebody had taken an old like decommissioned lawn chair and fastened it over a big hole that they had dug in the ground. And then you just sit in the lawn chair, which now has like just a hole in the bottom of it and you gotta position your like cheeks right so that way like it goes through the hole.
Otherwise you're gonna get like turds on the actual chair, which is gonna be a huge party foul. But, and then you just poop and it's essentially like an outhouse without walls uh or a solid seat, but. I'm pretty sure unfortunately we buried other crap in there that we should not have. But I remember the one night, you know, it was pretty hot. And so I'm pretty sure David was like, you know, he's doing his thing.
But one, I think it was David, but somebody decided they're going to sleep outside the tent and they slept and they rolled over and got too close to the fire. And part of their like blankets and sleeping bags had singed and like partially caught fire in the middle of the night. And we didn't know. And they like woke up. They're like, holy crap. I could burn alive. It's like, yeah, you could have. uh It's incredibly dangerous.
We made some gnarly uh ramen noodle brown hamburger and just like weird concoction hash the next morning. ah Yeah. And then as I remember, pretty much everybody who could get a flat tire on the way out of that place got a flat tire on the way out of that place. But yeah, it was memories. uh yeah, go camping. It's good stuff. when you go camping. Make sure you bury that poop. This has been another Hunter's Anecdotes to keep you afloats. This has been another episode of privy.
Thank you so much for listening. It means the world. Thank you so much for over thousand downloads. Yeah, it's awesome. Thank you guys. I hope we can continue to grow the show and grow the community. Reach out to us. Connect with us on social media at privycast. Feel free to share those social media posts. Share those if there's information in there. Just share that. We'd also like to hear from you if you want to shoot us an email privycast at gmail.com.
uh Share your camping disaster stories, whatever it is, know, shoot us an email. We would love to hear from you and connect with you in that way. And uh as we continue to grow the community, it's cool to hear from the folks who are just out there living their lives. um I do have a story. ah Speaking of folks who write in, This is Jude Dominey. Thank you, Jude. Jude writes in and says, almost whiffed it. It's 10, 15 p.m. and I'm driving home when all of a sudden I feel a bowel movement coming.
I know it's about 15 minutes until I hit style, which is where he was going. I mean, I have a buddy that I can go to to use their privy, but little did I know it would be the longest 15 minutes of my life. I'm going and I noticed that the feeling of my bowel starts wanting to come out. And as I get closer to my destination, I get closer to making movement in my shorts. I get to the house as I'm running in, my bowels are slowly creeping out of me.
As soon as I sit on the privy, it all just shoots out of my booty hole. And I sit there still pooping. I feel so much better. But it's a stinky long one. And that's what she... Anyway, thank you, Jude. But yeah, we love to hear those stories. We've all been there where we've, you know, we've got one fully loaded in the chamber, Herbie fully loaded. and it's coming out so um yeah, your bravery is noted for sharing ah your tale of woe there and I'm glad you made it.
That could have ended much worse. So send us an email. If you do not want it read on the show, that's totally fine. We won't read it but yeah, let's do that. Leave us a rating or review. Five star options are preferred and share the show with friends, three friends this week and just yeah, get the word of the show out there. We would love for you to do that. As always, want to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of Bar Room Ballet as our intro and outro music.
You can find Kevin's music at incompetech.org and he is licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0. Thanks, Kevin. We'd also love to thank Pottington Bear for the use of all colors in the world as the Hunter's Anecdotes intro and outro music. You can find Pottington Bear's music at pottingtombare.com. Thanks, Pottington. This has been another episode of Privy. Thank you all so much for listening. And now, as always, don't forget to flush.