A Hermit in the Outhouse

By Carver Stellmon

I left Lewiston around four-thirty in the afternoon on Memorial Day 2010 after a weekend spent watching college baseball.  By nine at night, I was parked in Knife Edge Campground on the banks of the Lochsa River, rockin’ out to James Taylor in my sleeping bag. I ate half a sandwich, drank half my bottled water, and fell asleep. At around six the next morning, the water from the night before caught up to me.

As a kid, I would let fly in my diaper and roll over like nothing happened until my mom stopped buying the bedwetting prevention when she realized I was using it as a way to avoid the short walk across the hallway to the bathroom.

When I was much older, she once referred to me as her “durr” child, which she claimed was a slip of the tongue, an accidental mixture of words (perhap ‘”duh” and “er”), and she really wasn’t nominating me as the dumbest of her offspring. Nevertheless, my brother and sister-in-law laughed. On this Memorial Day weekend, I finally proved them right.

It had been raining all night, so to go outside on that early morning, I put on my boots and a T-shirt in case it was a little chilly. Typically, when I camped in my truck, I would open one of the rear passenger doors and wiggle my way out headfirst. But this time I thought it might be easier to pop open the rear gate of the SUV and slide out feet first.

I took care of my business and crawled back into my vehicle for an extra hour of sleep, but then realized it would be impossible to close the back hatch of the vehicle completely from the inside. Naturally, I hopped out and closed it. I got about halfway to the side door when my error came into focus.

“Is it possible I’m that stupid?” I asked out loud.

I gave a tug on the latch.

“Yep, I’m that stupid.”

After the swear words left my head, I pondered the situation.

The keys are in my pants pocket, which I can see through the car window. This is unfortunate, because when my pants are in the locked car, they are not on me.

A draft affirmed this observation.