Random Thoughts on a Random Subject

As a mother who spends countless hours each year at soccer practices and games, I’m still amazed at how all of these child-focused activities take place in areas where there is no access to restrooms.  At the occasional park where there IS a restroom, I’m terribly suspicious of it.  I dread it every time, the child who needs to use the restroom (but who naturally waited to tell me until it was already a crisis) in the middle of a game. Yes, this is one of those silly things that makes me stress, especially with 5 daughters.

Imagine my surprise at my son’s  soccer games, to see a port-a-potty standing next to the entrance of the locked up school.


The Honey Bucket label made me laugh, so I had to take a picture.

It’s also a memory because my four year old insisted he didn’t need to use it when we left the game for our hour plus drive home.  A quarter of a mile down the road, however, he needed it.  We turned around to drive back, and naturally he didn’t make it.  Oh, the joys of little boys.

I both love and hate these Honey Buckets.  When there’s an emergency, they are most helpful.  I have my children use them.  But as for me, I can’t stand them.  Simply can’t.  Even as a child I had this horrible aversion to them.  I remember going camping with my family and using the bathroom at home just before we drove away.  I would then walk to the car thinking, “I won’t need to go again until we get home.”  And I didn’t.  Ever.  Still don’t.

I remember camping with my husband and children when I was 8 months pregnant.  When I had to climb out of the tent in the dead of night and find my way to the outhouse without my contacts in I almost got in the car instead to drive away.  (What was I thinking, agreeing to camp in the first place?)  There’s nothing like knowing the only option is an outhouse to cure me of the need to go at all.  They’re something that I can’t stand the sight of, and yet feel relived to spot.

How would I ever have survived a life without indoor plumbing?

I guess I would have made it just fine, not knowing any other option.

And for the record, I never thought I’d see a beautiful picture featuring port-a-potties, until my sister posted a rainbow on her blog a few weeks ago.  Proof positive that beauty lies hidden in unlikely places.  Check it out!

And that sums up my random thoughts on a random subject.  Yes, I know.  Totally random.  Oh well.

HH