The Latter-Day Frontier [/\/ick]

This is an addendum to Sarah's post about our weekend water woes.

I've never been much of a camper. As a youngster, I was sent to summer camp every summer. (It was a special camp for poor kids.) Each summer, we camped out in the woods for a night. One year I woke up in the middle of the night, got disoriented, and peed on some kid's pillow (mistaking it for the 'bathroom' tree),

As a young adult in New Hampshire, I went on a bike trip with the scouts. Well, I drove the support vehicle on their week-long bike trip. During the first night, it rained. In the night, some scouts tripped over my tent lines in the rain and I woke up soaked. I have not enjoyed the wilderness life.

In spite of this, my Grandmother, on more than one occasion, told me I looked like "Man Mountain Dean", aka "Mountain Man Dean". I thought she was just in her dotage and was making stuff up. Turns out he was a real person, a professional wrestler. That's him up at the top of this post. Tell me what you think- do I look like him?

I would not have survived living on the frontier, either. Living the past few days without running water has made me appreciate that. I still had electricity, and heating (it's been getting into the 30's at night here in mid-Michigan), and satellite TV (for General Conference (ok, for MythBusters)), cable internet, indoor sanitation (yeah, toilets) etc. We still had plenty of "mod cons", but I gained new appreciation for living on the edge and having to haul your water.

Think about what you have to do first thing in the morning. Now think about having to first go out of the house to haul a 5-gallong bucket of water in before you could do what you have to do first thing in the morning. Don't forget that you can only wash your hands in the kitchen sink because that's where the 7-gallon emergency-water container is (it won't fit on the bathroom counter).

Think not just of washing the dishes by hand, but of having to heat the water on the stove before you wash them. Think of the fact that you don't have enough burners to heat enough pans of water to fill your sink in one go. Then think of the fact that you have so many dirty dishes you can't do them in one sinkful of hot water, so you have to heat like 15 gallons of water in shifts. The whole time you're doing one sinkful of dishes, you're heating water for the next sinkful, because the water you're using now is already disgusting, but you don't have any new hot water for it yet, so oh well, keep washing. Dont' forget the cold water to rinse in, which is another 10 gallons or so. Yeah, it should probably be hot water I guess, but I don't have enough room to heat the wash water, much less the rinse water.

What about brushing your teeth? Do you use a) the unfiltered, unsoftened water from the hose, b) the water you've stored for six months but forgot to add a couple of drops of bleach to, so who knows what is growing in it, or c) the expensive bottled water? I chose some of (b) and some of (c). I chose (c) for the kids, though.

Oh, and don't forget to tell your kids not to drink (b) because you're not sure if its safe. Dan says it tasted fine, but then he vomited twice Sunday night and didn't go to school Monday, so who knows.

Finally, forget bathing/showering! You think I'm gonna haul that much water in and heat it? Oh no I'm not. So when things start to get a little itchy in places you shouldn't touch in front of company, just grab the wet-wipes and have a sponge bath. (Do NOT forget to warm them up first!) When your hair starts to feel like a greasy mop, grab the shampoo and the hose and go outside for a quick (and cold) hair-wash. Luckily, we have friends (two sets of friends, actually) who offered the use of their facilities, so we all got showered on Sunday and I didn't have to do the half-naked-outside-with-the-hose-hair-wash-dance.

To the vast numbers of humans who did without running water, electricity, and all the things that go with it: I salute you.

I need some water.