Toilet Training

Our Tiny Mobile Home/Bathroom on Wheels, Idyllwild, California © 2023 Craig Dahlberg

The 17-foot long camping trailer we tow behind us should hardly be called a “mobile home.” It’s more of a miniature “mobile room,” with part of it sectioned off, creating the world’s smallest bathroom on wheels. Ironically, there is no “bath” in the bathroom. There is a shower, a hand-held portable wand connected to a length of plastic hose. This miniature room is a toilet hovel, a place to do your business, then pray you can quickly unlock the door to escape.

Heaven help the unsuspecting first-time shower victim, unfamiliar with the concept of sitting, backside exposed of course, atop a toilet seat that is still in the down position, reminding you that you’re there to shower—and nothing else at the moment. First, without a modicum of propriety, you remove every stitch of clothing because, well, you’re going to shower, of course. Now, where do you put the dirty clothing, and where do you put the newly unpacked and clean clothing? One choice is to strip naked just outside the teeny bathroom, a good choice for maneuverability, but not so great if curious visitors drop by, peeking inside just after you drop your skivvies. (“Oh, I just love how cute this little trailer is!” they will coo.) Another option is to cram yourself into the microscopic toilet/shower with your contortionist handbook outlining the moves required to disrobe, toss your clothes out the door, and then pretzel yourself into painful showering positions. Reverse this time-consuming and torturous process to dress in your clean, humidity-soaked clothes. Oh, wait! Just where are my clean clothes!?

Our trailer is so small that it disappears behind any motor home parked near it. “Weren’t we on this row?” I’ll ask my wife after our evening walk. “Was it Honeydew Lane, or was it Gumball Alley?” We always eventually find our fiberglass aquarium-sized rolling cabin. “Oh, that’s right! We must be next to that bus christened Goliath.” It drips gaudy Christmas lights, declaring, “We’re roughing it cooler than you are!” And there is the dog, displayed like window dressing—those omnipresent chihuahua mixes eternally guarding the dashboard of a Class A motor home, a rabid omnivore ready to tear the arm off any unsuspecting camper wandering inadvisedly across the white chalk line demarkation between hallowed camping turf, those microscopic chihuahua teeth engineered to bisect a slice of limp salami.

Our previous tiny 16-foot camper had two dining tables, one at each end. They could each be converted into beds. One side was a slightly tight fit for two, but sleeping head to toe in sleeping bags was a doable adaptation. With these arrangements, we could take another couple camping with us. Another couple, that is, whom we might know quite well and was not shy about propriety. The true test of friendship was a fold-up porta-potty, shared among the four. At night, especially considering an extended nighttime jaunt to the camp bathroom, and given sufficient space between campsites, I would place the porta-potty just outside the camper door, semi-concealed.

One night, nature called. I crawled silently out of my sleeping bag, a ghost fashionably attired in plaid sleeping pants. I carefully pulled the camper door shut behind me, gently turning the handle to prevent it from clicking like a midnight gunshot. I tiptoed to the porta-pottie, lifted the lid and paused. What next? Delivering while standing would amplify the ensuing splash of a mountain waterfall, loud enough to wake my companions. Instead, I knelt down before the toilet as if doing homage from a church pew. Halfway through, I froze. Behind me, the unexpected popping of twigs and of swishing leaves announced a visitor. Were it a deer or even a coyote, I could have struck out with my free fist. It was something far worse. Unknown to me, our female camping companion had preceeded me out of the camper and was returning from the campground restroom. Now we both encountered one another, each earnestly attending to our own mission, one of us having graciously completed her bathroom duties while the other, ill-timed, still knelt, mid-stream.

It took her a moment to figure out what was going on, seeing me kneeling before a toilet with the lid up, plaid sleeping pants reflecting the moonlight. She gave out a sudden weird sound, a strange horrified half-giggle, half-choke, the kind of sound Minnie Mouse might make, trying to cough up throat phlegm. My back was to her, so over my shoulder, I cheerfully blurted, “Beautiful night, isn’t it?” I looked like a giant, half-full teapot emptying its contents, my free hand fashionably placed upon my hip, elbow splayed outward, my arm forming a large teapot handle.

We both froze. The only sound was a stream, then a rivulet, then a slow trickle from within the plastic porta-pottie. Panicked, I dissected the entire Websters Dictionary in my head, searching for the right words to say, but came up empty.

Have you ever, at the end of the day, discovered your zipper down? And then you realize it has been that way since before lunchtime, the last time you used the bathroom? How many hours, and people, have passed by since then? And then you re-create various sitting postures and walking positions you’ve performed throughout the day to see just how awful it might have been? It was worse than that.

I crawled into bed, burying my head into my sleeping bag. The next morning, at breakfast, my wife inquired, “How did you sleep last night?” She and the female traveling companion who stumbled across me during the night were already suffering sore ribs inflicted by mirth and hilarity. After they recovered, my wife disclosed, “I was awake, and I knew that both of you were out of the camper at the same time for the same purpose. I could hear you using the porta-potty, so I was just waiting for the meetup!”