When presented with an emergency, I am not the coolest head on the planet. I am also a major league prude and an all around chickenshit. Not much here to recommend me as boyfriend material, but I nevertheless have an amazing girlfriend I'll call J. J is gorgeous (not just my opinion -- people are always asking how such a sorry ass as myself got to be with such a major babe), uninhibited, and forgiving. The latter trait plays a primary roll in the fact that I survived to write this story.
In August, we went camping for a week in a cabin we rented at the lake. There are a number of cabins up there, but they are fairly well isolated from one another. This probably enters in to our idea to skinny-dip in the lake one evening after dark. As I said, I'm a prude, so she had to agree to leave the back door of the cabin open for me to make a mad dash if a car happened along.
We went down to the water and had a ball. After a while I heard a car coming in the distance. I ran like a scared rabbit into the cabin and promptly pulled on shorts and a shirt. J strolled casually up to the door and came in until the car passed. After it had gone out of sight she said she had to poop anyway, so she went into the bathroom. She had no more than gone around the corner then she suddenly began screaming bloody murder.
Which is exactly what I thought was happening. I just knew that Jason, or Freddy, or the Ghost of Christmas past, or some other damn thing was in the crapper killing my beautiful girlfriend. I froze like the chickenshit that I am until she threatened to beat the crap out of me unless I came in and helped her.
I love her, but I fear her more. So I gingerly went around the corner and saw the problem. I wished that I hadn't: two evil, blood-sucking vampire bats from the very pit of hell were swooping and diving around the bathroom ceiling. Okay, so they were most likely the harmless variety of little brown bat, but I was taking no chances. "Get the hell out of there!" I screamed, adding that they probably had rabies. J crawled out and jumped to her feet, running to the cabin door, just barely beating me.
Once outside, we regained a bit of composure. They must have flown in the door we left open. I had no idea how we were to get them out. I sure as hell wasn't going back in there to face Dracula and his mate, and I wasn't going to let J, either. She might need me to rescue her or something, and I was fresh out of courage. Okay, so I never had any to begin with, don't get so damn picky.
"I've still gotta poop," J informed me.
No problem, says I. We'll walk down to a neighboring cabin and ask to use their crapper. Uh-oh, I'm getting The Look now. What did I say that was so stupid? Wait a minute, I've got it! J is still naked. "Oh shit!" I said, as if that were a useful suggestion.
After fumbling about in the near total darkness for a while, I found an old stockpot upside-down behind the cabin. Not my first choice, but any port in a storm. J took a bit more convincing, but realized she really had precious few alternatives. As delicately as she could, she squatted down over the pot and began to strain to evacuate her bowels.
The pot chose just that moment to slide forward. J slowly slid like a capsizing boat onto the ground. I reached down to help her up when she ripped a fart that sounded like a foghorn. Only it wasn't just a fart. It was the real deal. J pooped out a log while lying naked on her back in the cold damp grass.
I felt called upon to comment on this very unladylike behavior. J apparently felt called upon to wing the pot at my head. I ducked in time for it to fly with a crash through the window of the cabin.
By now we were both more than a little beside ourselves with the situation. I apologized for the "unladylike" thing and she graciously accepted as she squatted above the previously released log to finish defecating. I went to the car and found some Kleenex, which she used to wipe. A grocery bag in the trunk turned inside-out was used to pick up the poop and tissues, which were unceremoniously thrown in the burn barrel.
Now what? The bats were still inside. J was still naked, and I was still a chickenshit.
I suppose in retrospect that if I were any kind of decent human being I could have offered her my shirt; but like I said, I'm a major league prude. No one but her sees me without a shirt on. (Besides, I was sort of enjoying the view.)
She suggested I go in and get her cell phone. I suggested that she forget her suggestion, but that I would be willing to wait outside for her. Eventually we decided that we would walk down to the next cabin. She would hide out of sight while I asked if they had a cell phone. They did. I called J's mother and convinced her to come and bring J some clothes.
It seemed like forever until her mom came. She said nothing as J dressed. We asked her to take us home with her. She asked why we didn't just drive there. We told her.
Staring incredulously at us, she motioned for us to get in the car, and drove us to her place. The next day, J's dad and brother went to the cabin, got our stuff, fixed the window, and drove the car home. I patiently endured being called a pussy by her brother, mostly because 1) he was right, and 2) he could kick my ass.
Incidentally, J did forgive me. We will be getting married next month. However whenever she wants me, she still yells, "Hey, Chickenshit!"
