There's Something in the Water

I am currently on holiday. Well, actually I'm not any more. By now I will have returned home and uttered the phrase "very nice thanks" seventeen or eighteen times. But that's a future now. 'Now' is elastic like that. My current now involves me camping in Wiltshire, sat in my tent with a can of warm lager perched precariously on a beach towel in case of spillage.



See? Truth be told, it's not been much of a holiday for that towel, when it isn't braced for saturation it forms the basis of my pillow. I pity its return to the other towels.
"Alright Tattystripes, how was Wiltshire?"
"Which part, the mopping up of beer or the being squashed beneath a fat bloke's sweaty cranium for eight hours?"
It doesn't sound so bad now I look at it. Do you notice the can's white backdrop? That's the flyscreen. It's far too hot to zip the tent's main door shut. This is the first time I've slept in such a way and I've noticed that it provides both the benefit of allowing air to circulate about my nocturnal perspirations, but also imbues the camping with a (admittedly, small) sense of bold adventure. After all, there is mere netting between my slumbering heap of self and the horrors of the outside world. It's either 'bold adventure' or 'naked vulnerability', I forget which.

For a lot of people their main camping experience is as a (relatively) economical way of attending festivals, primarily because it gives you a base at which to leave both your clean clothes and any foolish intention towards clean living that may have stowed away in your rucsac. Of course, the festival cliche that sends many running to the hills is the distressing state that one may find the toilet facilities. A benefit of regulated campsites (such as the one upon which I currently find myself) is that bathroom terrors are rare. They are cleaned/fumigated/cleansed by fire every day so they can be used with some degree of justified optimism, unlike festival loos whose doors must be opened with trepidation, the knowledge that unpleasantness may lurk within that is so unspeakable as to force you to question the humanity and self respect of the previous resident. And make you poo behind a hedge instead.

Being a biologically functioning human who lacks a desire for floating teeth, I visted the campsite facilities earlier today (by 'today', I refer you back the previous discussion of 'now') and felt my heart sink as I followed a fellow camper through the door. "Balls" thought I, with the knowledge that there are only two urinals, "I'll have to use a cubicle". You see, urinals are complicated numerically. A single is fine, as are three or more, but two is horrible when they are both occupied. There's a feeling of teamwork that hangs between you which I'm not particularly comfortable with. It's like you've become Brothers in Piss. A manly nod is exchanged as if to say 'we're here to do the same job, together we can get this done [zzzip]', an acknowledgment which I would rather not be involved in. Therefore, to avoid sharing another man's hosedown, I dart into a cubicle. Locking the door, I raise the seat. I am confronted by something that resembles the decomposing thigh of a black bodybuilder. I shut the lid immediately, retching quietly to myself and wondering why there was no blood. Surely noone could birth something like that without splitting themselves in two? Disgusted, quizzical, and still needing a wee, I decamp to the next cubicle and shut the door.

I almost open it again to check whether I actually moved.

It is exactly the same, like someone has clumsily parked a brown camper van at a jaunty angle at the base of the u-bend, the owner having snorkelled off to phone the AA. Escaping again I find that within each of the five cubicles lurks a monstrous water-logged torpedo, each more intimidating than the last. This was ridiculous. Had a family of lumberjacks brought their work on holiday with them? I felt like a lion tamer realising he's out of his depth, realising that a whip and a chair won't come close to defending against the advancing horde of drooling beasts, eyes blazing with vindictive hunger and teeth glistening in perilous moonlight. Eventually, with a sense of grim resignation hanging on my shoulders like a drab overcoat you are obliged to wear because it cost your auntie a week's pension, I return to the first cubicle, lair of the smallest bowel-evacuee, taking care to fill the bowl with a large quanity of toilet tissue. If I had to share a room with it, at least I didn't have to look at it. I pulled the lever allowing the cistern to empty and vacated the cubicle to wash my hands. I'm certain that, as I left, I could hear a gurgly voice growl after me.

"I'm still here you fucker."