Coffee Cup Latrine

          I was not going to tell this story on my blog, but after I shared it with my grandmother today she said, with tears in her eyes, that I had to do it. Since it is Mother’s Day and I love my grandmother, I will go ahead and share what else happened during the day titled, “First Gear? There is a first Gear?”

          Let me start by telling you one thing about myself that only a few of you know. I am legendary for going potty anywhere, anytime and around anyone. I have peed behind a dumpster in Couer D’ Alene while my high school buddy Tim waited just around the other side, in the field of course, on back roads as cars drive by, on highways, behind a dumpster in Spokane while The Boss stood sentry, rarely in an outhouse, on just about every spot of land up in the St. Joe National Forest and frankly I don’t care who is up there, in my husband’s shop bathroom (YUCK), behind a tree in a park in Portland, on a busy street on Maui with toads hopping beneath my skirt, behind a dumpster in Anaheim….you get the idea here.

          If you know nothing eles of this farm wife, you will know that I am not a shy person and I figure that is how man has been doing it for years, so why not a woman. Are you with me here? It’s a protest thing. I say, “Drop trow!” any time you need to ladies, which might be why it has been medically verified by an ultrasound tech that I had the smallest bladder she had ever seen. I don’t hold it. Not for long.

          In order to help you understand how I ended up in a place where even I wouldn’t pee, I also need to introduce you to my tractor. I drive a Versitale. I don’t know the number, and honestly I don’t know if that is the correct spelling of the word or not, and I don’t care. It’s not even worth me looking it up. This thing is old. Really old, and it has issues.

          For this story I will tell you of the worst issue: it gets stuck in and out of gear a lot, and when it does this you cannot do anything about it until the only combine/tractor mechanic in the county has time to come out and help you. The Boss informed that that if you are patient with it and make sure that you are shifting smoothly from one gear to another it will never get stuck. He was right. It did work every time that I slowed down and took the time to shift it carefully. The only problem is that I am only 5’1” tall and the clutch is about 7’5” away from the seat. Being short for much of my life I had learned to adapt to this by scooting my butt forward in the sea, grabbing the gear shift for support, and then pushing my foot to the floor before pulling the lever out of 2nd gear (which is what I roll in) and down into neutral when I need to stop, or vice versa.

          This particular fabulous day (as you know if you read the other story) I had to stop because someone was calling me and I couldn’t see my harrow line over the dust being blown about the cab. So I stopped, grabbed the gear shift and then moved into the butt-scoot foot-slamming when the damn chair swiveled about 30 degrees and my foot almost slipped off the clutch. Since I was still holding the gear shift for leverage, of course I pulled it forward and bam! The darn thing was stuck. NO! I cried out, trying to patiently jimmy it back into gear, or out of gear, since I had no idea where in the world it was. That baby wasn’t moving.

          Have I told you all how late this Spring Work is? Have a told you that every minute is as precious as honey dripping from a beehive? Well, it is, and now I know that I am going to be the one delaying it. By this time I had readjusted my foot on the clutch and slowly…every so slowly…inched it backward. Surprisingly, the tractor started moving. I slammed my foot back to the floor and called the Boss.

          “It’s going still,” I said.
         
          “Then go,” he said. “Don’t turn it off. If it kicks out of gear, and puts you in neutral, we will deal with it then. And, if you absolutely have to stop; stop. Okay?”

           So, I went. I was happy not to delay anyone; at least, I was happy until about an hour later when the two cups of coffee I had drank that morning had hit my bladder. On top of that, the dust was making me very thirsty. For the next hour I took little sips of my water and did my best to keep my mind off of the balloon building in my stomach. I loosened my belt. I sang songs, which got louder and more crackly as the time passed. I wiggled in my chair. I took deep breaths. I stopped drinking water, but I was NOT going to stop that tractor.

          Finally, at about 11:00, something had to give; either the tractor moving or my bladder. I put the clutch to the floor and the tractor stopped. There I sat, in a dusty old tractor seat that swiveled, with my leg out stretched, the tractor stopped, and still no way to get down to the ground to relieve myself. I think some form of delirium set in. You know, like when people are dehydrated and walking through a desert and they see a mirage of water? At some point they start running and begin to laugh with glee at the thought that what they want – what they need – is finally within reach. That was me.

          So, I leaned over and opened the door to the tractor and looked down. I could see what I needed. It was only three steps down, and it wasn’t a mirage; but still, there was no way to get to it. It started to laugh, but my diaphragm apparently put too much pressure on my bladder because after the first giggle I realized that laughing could be my worst mistake. I stopped doing that right away, and then looked ahead out the window to keep my eye on all things dry. Well, clearly you can understand that at this point, I only had two choices; stop and pee, or keep going…and pee. The boss said, “Don’t stop,” and I did not want to hear the cute little chiding that I would get from him – and the mechanic - if I stopped the tractor and advised them of the reason why. No way. No how. I was not going to let being a female with a medically proven small bladder be the joke of Spring Work.

          So, there I sat, with a full bladder, a running tractor, the ground within reach and…and idea that made me laugh despite the pain. I looked around to be sure that no one else was in my field. Yeah, right, like that’s ever happened. Unless, someone with a pair of high-powered binoculars is bird watching on the top of Steptoe Butte and just happened to fall upon me, I’m safe here. So, I look around for something to pee in. My lunch box would have been a great target. Please keep in mind that my left leg is fully outstretched to the floor and in order not to swivel I have to hold onto the gear shift that is up above the right side of the dash with my hand. But no, I was not going to pee in my lunch box. Even I cannot stoop to that level. After all, I only had one!

          So, I looked behind the seat, careful not to swivel, hoping that someone had left an empty pop bottle (hey, if I guy can aim at that, so can I) a small bucket, a cup, something. Wait! No way! I couldn’t! The hell I couldn’t. That sucker is what got me into this in the first place, and unlike my lunch box, I had more than one of them at home! So, I picked up my travel coffee mug, pulled the lid off, and then proceeded to wiggle very carefully out of my pants. I’m not going to go into too much detail here, because I think this is one of those subjects most people in America still shy away from, but I will say that I was way better at aiming at that cup that I was aiming at my harrow mark on that field. And why not, I am an expert at peeing.

         So, I did it. The only problem was that I had drunk TWO cups of coffee and not one. So, I had to – as crude men say – pinch it off. Sorry, I know that wasn’t very Puritan of me! My Irish and German roots are showing again. Anyway, full coffee cup in hand I had to open the window with one hand, hold the steering wheel with the other, and keep the clutch in all without spilling a drop or having the chair swivel and killing the tractor.

          Long story short (again, sorry) I did it. I was proud of myself and I was laughing all day trying to decide whether to tell the Boss. In the end, of course I was going to tell him. I tell him every thing about my bladder because it makes him laugh – and this Spring Work he needs a laugh. So, that night I brought the coffee cup in, threw it away and told him that we wouldn’t want that one anymore. 

         “Why?” he asked.
       
         “Because I peed in it.”
       
         “You what?” he laughed.  
         
         “I couldn’t stop the tractor, so I had to improvise.”

         Frankly, I thought he would pat me on the back like a guy and say, “Way to go!” Instead he asked a stupid question: “Why didn’t you stop the tractor?”

         “Because you said not to,” I advised, turning a little red in the face.

         “I didn’t say not to,” he said.

         “Yes, you did,” I say. “You said, keep going. Don’t stop unless I absolutely had to, so I kept going.”

         “But peeing is absolutely having to,” he said.
   
         “But I would have killed the tractor.”
     
         “Why didn’t you just put it in neutral?”

         Now, keep in mind that he has a lot on his mind and the last thing I want to do is remind him of the fact that I still need the mechanic, but how could he forget what he said after all of the trouble I went through to keep rolling today.

         “Remember?” I said. “I got it stuck in gear when the chair swiveled.”

          “So?” he said, still looking at me ridiculously. “You still could have put it in neutral.”

          Hello, people? My man has lost his mind. Stuck gear shifts won’t go in neutral!

          “How?”

         “The gear shift up above the throttle,” he says.

         “What gear shift?” I say.

         “The other one,” he says. “I showed it to you when you started. The one you put in 4th gear.”

         “It has a neutral?” I said.

         At this point, he just started laughing and like many other times in my life I made him swear not to tell anyone. Boss or not, I will kick his ass if he does.