Last night I really wished my van had a bathroom. Even though I made darn sure to have a fully functioning bathroom visit before retiring for the night I really wished I had some sort of toilet in the van. At some point I’ll be taking care of that, but for now it’s a bit of a hike to relieve myself. This was not urban camping at it’s best, this was clearly the van dwelling that is not suited to be romanticized.

My troubles started yesterday when I found a little stash of my medications and returned to taking them. One of them is a diuretic and true to it’s nature will keep me running to the bathroom to pee the first five or so hours after I take it. And when did I take last night’s medication? Oh, about 9pm. The effect is especially strong after not taking them for a few days. Oops!

So within an hour of going to bed I had the rather pointed desire to pee. Not fun, especially as there was people outside the van chatting obliviously to my being there and I didn’t want to change that. And smart thing too, as it turned out there was two visits from the cops in the immediate area and I really don’t want to be hassled for living in my van. I was parked within eye sight of a Jerry Springer style relationship drama involving a trampy ho new girlfriend, a baby daddy and a psycho ex girlfriend with jealousy issues. It was a bit comical that the outside there were potty mouths talking shit about each other, that outside was a free flowing human sewer while inside the van I didn’t have a pot to piss in.

At some point I’ll either get a bucket/sawdust system or a self-contained toilet, but that’ll have to wait for the future. A pee bottle would have been really nice last night and the inconvenience of using would would likely have outweighed the pains in my bladder.

My descent into the bowels of hell

As much as I love free food I really should say no more often. This whole last weekend I ate junk, largely to conserve funds and partially to simply indulge in some forbidden fruit.

For medical reasons I do have some eating restrictions. I’m lactose intolerant so dairy isn’t the best choice I can make and I had my gallbladder removed years ago so high fat foods also disrupt my digestive system. Then there is also the hyperglycemia, where simple carbs throw my blood sugar into a tizzy at the drop of a hat. I’m fine with slow digesting whole grains and more natural foods with a low glycemic index, but anything processed, fast food or grocery store convenience food is probably going to cause blood sugar issues. White flour and sugars are in just about anything ready to eat.

And what did I have the last two days? Lasagna, soda, chips and salsa, chili con queso, cheese and crackers. Tons of white flour, tons of dairy and even some pure sugar water in a can. But hey… it was free, right?

So on top of really needing to pee last night my entire digestive tract was bloated and crampy and I really wished my van was more of an RV and that I had more common sense this weekend. Free is not necessarily the best choice for me when it comes to food. Eating right is the first step to good health especially when there’s outstanding medical issues. And the whole taking a medication with a strong diuretic effect immediately before bed was just ignorance to the reality of living in a home without a bathroom of any sort.

Oh RV conversion fairies! Please wave your magic wands! I’m too stupid to save myself from myself!

In medieval London, people did not have indoor plumbing. It was common to use a chamber pot as an indoor toilet. The chamber pot could then be dumped out a window into the street gutter below. A person who did not have a “pot to piss in” was poor indeed.

In medieval times the word “piss” was not considered at all vulgar. It was not until Victorian England that words such as piss were deemed vulgar. Even today phrases like “pot to piss in” and “Full of Piss and Vinegar” are somehow considered to be generally acceptable and only moderately crude.

stolen from Phrases. Clichés, Expressions & Sayings

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