THE OUTHOUSE

I have been thinking of a summer at Grandma and Grandpa's when I was little. They didn't have a bathroom yet, so we had to use the outhouse, which was a scary thing to those of us who weren't used to it. There was actually a catalog there for toilet paper, but Mom took pity on us city kids and bought regular toilet paper, but I was always afraid I would fall in. I secretly wondered if Mom and Dad would really think I was worth cleaning off if I did, or if they'd just rather leave me there in the gooey mess. If I ever had to get up in the middle of the night I didn't let Mom get away with just handing me a flashlight, I made her walk with me in the dark, too. For one thing, I could often smell skunk near the outhouse, and I didn't want to meet one on a dark path.
One morning Karleta and I started down to the outhouse when we saw a porcupine come out of the bushes. It scared us half to death, and we ran in terror to the kitchen, where our moms and Grandma were. Grandma sent for Grandpa, and he brought out his rifle and killed it. Our hero!
However, when we were called to lunch, we found to our horror that Grandpa had skinned the porcupine and Grandma had cooked it! Not only that, but Grandma and our moms had gathered pigweed greens to cook with it, and I began to wonder what kind of hillbilly redneck family I had been born into. The truth was, I had been born into a family who had lived through the Great Depression, who had learned to use everything they could to make a life.
Despite everyone's insistence that porcupine tasted just like chicken...have you ever realized how many disgusting animals that people try to get you to eat (snake, frogs' legs...) supposedly taste like chicken?.... Karleta and I, already picky eaters, absolutely refused to take even one bite. Grandma took pity on us and handed us bread with butter and jam on it.
It wasn't just the outhouse that was a trial in my life, it was the metal washtub we had to bathe in on Saturday night, too. Grandma would pin a towel up over the window so no one would peek, and heat water on her wood stove to pour into the tub. The first person to bathe was the luckiest, because you had to bathe in the same water as everyone else, even when soap scum skimmed the surface. I bet that wash tub was a beast to empty!
We were all so happy when Grandma and Grandpa turned the little sewing room into a bathroom, but I bet Grandma was the happiest of us all.