You can only begin to imagine the pure look of shock, mixed with horror and fear, when I asked where the bathroom was — only to be met with the words “outhouse” this weekend. I took a second to decipher and let them sink in.

Um. Like in olden times?

I could see TC rolling his eyes at me and saying, “yes, don’t be such a god damn princess! Sit your ass down!”.

But this is so much easier said than done. For so many, many reasons.

1. The outhouse was surrounded by an electric fence. I was convinced I was going to shock the kooch while crossing it. Yeah, not a pleasant thought.

2. I have a hard time dealing with strong “scents” … sounds a lot better than the alternative word.

3. I have a thing about bugs and outhouses. Need I elaborate? Didn’t think so.

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. I was armed with one of my girls, who wasn’t going to let me handle this trauma alone and did what any good friend should do – came with.

It only took me about two minutes to figure out how to open the “door” and then both of us proceeded to spend a good five reading  the “How To Use Composting Toilet” sign.

And then we re-read. And re-read. And re-read slower and slower.

Come again?

I can’t tell you how much better it made me feel knowing I wasn’t the only clueless one. For example — what bucket are they talking about being full and emptying? THE bucket or another bucket I wasn’t seeing? All I wanted to do was pee. Did this still count as a “deposit”? Did I need to still cover the toilet paper in this case?

The questions were, obviously, endless.

All this time trying to figure it out, and finally, my bladder couldn’t take any more waiting. So. I took a deep breath and took the plunge.

Sitting down on that seat completely grossed me out. I wondered why the hell I didn’t have clorox disinfectant wipes on me when I really needed them and was trying desperately to ignore the bugs near my nether regions.

At this point, during mid pee, our hostess comes strolling by and announces that we can use the bathroom inside the house.

WTF.

At this point, I said the only appropriate thing I could: God Damnit!

That was my first and last experience on the composting toilet. From there on out, we were all over some inside bathroom action.

Not that I’m against composting toilets. I fully support anything with the words “composting” in them but some Taurus’ do have their limits.