A version of this essay closed “Backpacker” magazine’s “2001 Gear Guide”
The only time adults seem to have casual conversations about bodily functions is when we are raising toddlers or in the backcountry. I think there is something about both that reflects a more natural order of things; the cosmos’s way of reminding us that no matter how accustomed we get to indoor plumbing, in its absence we are forced to discuss those things we usually deem too personal for public air.
Last summer a female friend joined me for a week in the Denali backcountry. I knew inevitably we would have to have “the talk.” As a man, having the talk with my female friends is always uncomfortable. Over the years I’ve discovered that the best way to handle an uncomfortable situation is to forget about tact and just blurt it out.
“This is my P-Bottle,” I said and pointed to the red inscription, PEE: Don’t Drink, scribbled on the cap. I penned it partially as a warning to those who might stumble upon a full bottle, but mainly because I hoped it would absolve me of any wrongdoing if anyone actually mistook it for lemonade.
She thought about it for a few long seconds and said, “You really use a P-Bottle?”
It wasn’t the reaction I wanted. Apparently she had never heard of P-Bottles and was perplexed that I would be mixed up in such things. While she was thinking about the ramifications of P-Bottle usage, I was wondering if or how I was going to get her blessing to use mine.
“Why do you use a P-Bottle?” she said as if picturing me using one.
Trying to explain to the uninitiated why you use a P-bottle is like trying to describe to a couch potato why you go backpacking. The only real answer lies in the experience itself. Nevertheless, I said it was because “that way I don’t have to get up in the middle of the night.”
It was understated, yes, but it turned out to be good enough to get my bottle and me in the tent together. I snickered when she mentioned that she just “didn’t drink anything before bed.” By the end of the trip I figured that she would experience firsthand the shortcomings of being bottleless.
Every morning when she awoke my P-Bottle was full. Meanwhile in the wee hours before dawn she would whimper about having to go the bathroom, get up, get dressed, shine her headlamp in my eyes, smash my arm, flop out of the tent - by this time I’m wide awake - and then do it again on the way back in. I would lie there with the bottle stowed safely in the corner of the tent and think to myself how wonderful it was to still be horizontal.
One morning she asked, “Did you use the P-Bottle last night?”
“Yep,” I replied.
“You didn’t sit up or anything?”
“No,” I confirmed.
“How exactly do you use it?” she probed.
I thought about answering in the most comfortable way possible when my just-blurt-it-out rule came to mind. “You just put it up there and go,” I said trying to sound as if it were as natural as mac-n-cheese cooking on a campstove. “That’s how I do it anyway.”
But I didn’t even wake up,” she said, totally miffed.
“Yep, the less movement the better,” I said, “for both of us.” And I left it at that.
The nights came and went and my P-Bottle was always full in the morning. Soon she started mocking me with nightly comments like, “It’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your P-Bottle is?” I could tell she wanted one. The trip was bliss.
Every year I flip through Backpacker’s new Gear Guide searching for a review of P-Bottles and every year, nothing. With the anticipation of a kid on Christmas Eve, I rip open the super-duper Ultimate Gear List Pullout and I am heart broken to see that the lowly P-Bottle has been passed over again. If I didn’t know any better I would scream conspiracy!
In the grand scheme of all things backpacking the P-Bottle has to be in the top 10 must have pieces of gear. To me there is no greater backcountry pleasure than sleeping-in an extra six hours before having to get up and go. When holed-up during a 36-hour downpour my P-Bottle is more important than - and I can’t believe I’m saying it – coffee- which actually makes the bottle that much more important. When its -5 outside, the luxury of staying cozy in my mummy bag while my bottleless friends are fending off the cold surely deserves at least a mention in the Gear Guide, doesn’t it? As I see it from my side of the tent, P-Bottles are by far the best-kept secret in the backcountry.
Tags: assignment writing, backcountry, Backpacker, p-bottle, Pee Bottle, relationships, tent
