That night I woke up at 2am to pee. My options were to hike on the slippery ice to the outhouse past the black bears that had been spotted the night before, or to pee in a paper cup in our cabin.....
It took us nearly 8 hours to hike to the top of Mt. Le Conte. Eight hours of walking on a muddy, slushy, icy trail. By mile ten my legs were absolutely done-zo. I spent the next two miles convincing myself to take ten more steps and then I can take a break. Nine more steps. Eight... And then I'd start over again. Ten. Nine... Those last two miles were brutal, and I was beyond thrilled when we made it to the top. I knew it would be worth it to be able to stay in the village on top of the mountain, and boy was I right. The views were stunning, and the cabin was quaint. The only problem was that the only bathroom was quite a bit aways, and the pathway there, was downhill slightly and covered in a foot of snow that would turn into solid ice as the night got colder.
So, I wake up at 2am knowing that I have to pee.
I have to pee too bad to hold it, and I thought back to the last bathroom break we went on right before bed. That pathway was icy as all get out. I knew walking to the bathroom would be scary. I'd have to walk very carefully while keeping an eye out for the black bears that had been spotted overnight the past few days that week. I knew my best option was to pee in the paper cup that we had in the cabin with us. Plus, the bathrooms were port-a-potties, so even if I did walk, it wouldn't have been that much better. So, I grab my paper cup, pull my pants down and start to pee.
Now if you'll remember, I had just spent 8 hours earlier that day hiking 14 miles up a mountain. My thighs were spent....
I can hear the cup starting to fill up,
so I stop my pee, pull the cup forward to see how much space I have left in the cup.... but my hand catches on my pajama pants that were around my ankles. My thighs wobble. I try to catch myself. And I fall backwards spilling the entire cup of pee all over myself.
If you're laughing right now, don't feel bad. We laughed too. My parents woke up from hearing me shout "fuck!" as I fell. At first they thought it was my brother, but once I told them that I had fallen in my own pee, they giggled then proceeded to pretend to be asleep. Now- they will claim that they never pretended to be asleep, but it's my blog. So, they definitely did. If they wanna tell their side of the story, they can write their own damn blog about how their daughter fell in her piss at the top of a mountain.
So I'm sitting in a pile of my own piss...
I have to think about how to clean this up because this is a cabin at the top of a mountain. There are no paper towels. I didn't have anything in my bag either because we had carried everything on our backs for one night at the top. Everything else we packed was in our car at the bottom of the mountain.... including all of my clothes and extra underwear. So, I dry the pee as best as I can with my already soaked pajama pants and put them in an extra Kroger bag from my backpack. Then I put on my leggings- the only other clothes I had and climb back in bed. I'd deal with the rest in the morning.
(peep the pj pants on the counter in this photo to the right)
