4 — Wednesday, July 13, 2022

The 
first 
time 
I 
remember 
defecating outside of a toilet was when 
I was four years old. My father and I, 
along with my younger brother, were 
on our way back from the Brooklyn 
Children’s Museum via the B71 bus. 
It was winter, probably February, and 
falling sleet was visible through the 
bus’s windows. We saw this weather 
from near the front, facing the aisle, on 
a row of three blue seats. 
We must have stopped at a coffee 
shop between the museum and the 
bus ride, because I remember holding a 
small cup in my hand. Six ounces of hot 
chocolate, likely, all of which I drank 
lukewarm within the span of a few 
minutes. And then, several minutes 
after that, the Rube Goldberg machine 
that is the human digestive system was 
triggered. I relayed the unfortunate 
information to my father, that I had 
just used the bathroom, on the bus. 
“Is it pee, or poop?” was his next 
question, in a voice that was a little too 
loud for my own comfort. I affirmed 
the latter, and the tempo and timbre 
of his breathing began to melt into 

that of exasperation. His head looked 
to the floor in a gentle shake, and after 
comprehending the gravity of the 
situation, a sense of urgency induced 
by 
second-hand 
embarrassment 
clipped off any sense of gentleness in 
his words. “Come on, let’s go.”
The walk of shame was short, only 
about 10 feet to the front doors of 
the bus. As a relatively new member 
of society, I was exonerated for my 
wrongdoings, 
but 
the collective eyes 
of everyone else on 
the bus looked down 
the aisle mournfully 
at the responsible 
adult 
in 
this 
scenario, imparting 
my father with the 
weight of societal 
embarrassment. We 
were let off a few 
blocks later, on a 
walking search for 
a change of clothes 
and a change of 
scenario. 

***
This past February, I sat down at a 
cluster of chairs in the Michigan Union 
with three then-strangers. The initial 
awkwardnesses of unfamiliar faces 
soon faded away — as we had a trip to 
plan. In a few weeks, over our spring 
break, we would be backpacking 
at Zion National Park in southwest 
Utah. We scrolled on our respective 
laptops through images of soaring 

When nature calls
When nature calls
By Oscar Nollette-Patulski, Statement Correspondent

Read more at michigandaily.com

Design by Reid Graham

cliff faces and alien rock formations, 
all colored in a rugged sepia-red. We 
scoured trails and itineraries, hoping 
to replicate the perfect vacations of 
others who pressed down paths in 
hikes before us. 
After the three hours, we had 
booked campsites, created a day-
by-day itinerary and divided up 
responsibility for the equipment that 
would protect our lives for five days 
in the wilderness. 
It was then that the 
topic of using the 
bathroom came up. 
One of our members, 
Andrew, read aloud 
from 
the 
park’s 
website, 
and 
we 
found out that we 
must not only poop 
in the woods, but 
also carry out “all 
human waste.”
We 
looked 
around 
at 
each 
other, with nervous 
smiles 
gradually 

emerging on our faces. There was 
some repressed laughter, evidence of 
past childhoods cracking the supposed 
maturity that gave us the privilege of 
going to college. Using the woods as a 
restroom seemed unpleasant enough, 
but the idea of carrying out what 
our bodies had just expelled seemed 
comically cruel.
Despite the logistical qualms of 
Zion National Park’s outdoor-pooping 
guidelines, 
the 
environmental 
justification is great. The dry sand and 
rock of the area’s desert environment 
make for slow decomposition, and this 
accumulation of unresolved waste can 
have negative aesthetic and ecological 
effects. As written in a Facebook 
post by the park service, “We don’t 
hike in your toilet, so don’t poop in 
our canyon.” In the coming weeks, 
we would have to mentally prepare 
ourselves for the challenge ahead: 
what happens when one of the most 
private times in our day is made visible 
for the natural world to see?

Design by Abby Schreck