Friendshit
By Emily Bollman
Hiking is one of my favorite things to do. As a Colorado native I’ve been spoiled with some of the best trails and views in the world. One of my favorite aspects about long hikes is running deep into the wilderness to squat and pee. Sometimes I go on hikes just for that epic nature pee! I’ve hiked up 14,000 feet, looked out over the expanse of the continental divide, and sang the sound of music while I let out a golden stream. There are those trickier times though when pee’s more, solid cousin wants to join the fun. Those moments can be just as satisfying so long as you’re prepared and you have an intimate spot to make that moment special. I stress intimate because, there’s not a lot of people you’re going to want to take a nature shit around. When you find that person though, you better hold them close and never let them go.
Liv Dei Delori is one of those people for me. Let me introduce you to Liv. She is a 5 foot 1 force of nature. Literally. She was born out of a tube. Pro Lifers are confused, but she’s in a medical journal somewhere as the first non latex test tube baby to be born in the state of New Hampshire. Once this curly headed angel left her tube and entered the world, she was quickly diagnosed with a nut allergy, carrot allergy, Advil allergy, stone fruit allergy, soy allergy, gluten intolerance, and lactose intolerance. She has Tourette’s, wore a helmet as a baby, and went to boarding school with the daughter of the Ryan Seacrest of China. We bond over many things, but our unfortunate bathroom catastrophes make up a good amount of that bond. Both of us have peed ourselves or shit our pants more times than we can count. And we’ve stopped counting. We didn’t ask for this power, but we use it for good and when our powers are combined we are a formidable force of bodily fluids.
Liv and I are in Italy lounging around her parent’s home in Santa Margarita. It’s a lovely little apartment along the Cinque Terre coast line of Northern Italy. Her parent’s aren’t Italian, but they have multiple properties around the world. Liv says her dad is in Restaurant sales but I’m convinced he’s an international spy. Liv and I had both been studying abroad in London and when a mid semester, week long break from school popped up, she decided she wanted to go visit her family and I wanted to crash. I wasn’t the only one crashing, Liv’s grandpa, who she called grump-a was also arriving the same day. Grump-a was a, you guessed it, grumpy old man. He recently lost both his legs to diabetes related complications and Liv’s mom decided he and his stumps were to recuperate in Italy for the time being. When I met him it took everything in me not to address him as “Stumpy.” I know it sounds horrible, but he’d already called Liv a monkey, called me a “that girl,” and cursed out the TV for having drag queens on the screen. So yeah, we’d been insensitively calling him stumpy behind his squinty eyed back. He was quick with a jade insult, so when you crossed his line of sight, you better prepare yourself for a barrage of mockery from his crusty old clacker.
Liv and I wanted to spend as much time away from him as possible. I looked around me at the beautiful hillsides and proposed a hike! Liv told me she knew a great hike that would lead us to a few towns on the coast that you could only get to by foot or boat. It sounded magical so we got out a map and drew up our path.
“What are you girls up to?” Liv’s mom Sandy peeked her head over our shoulders.
“A hike” Liv motioned to the map.
“I’ll make sandwiches!” Liv’s mom was quick to action.
“Can you use the cheese?!!?” Liv chirped! We had bought this cheese that Liv loved so much because you could only get it here in Italy. It was similar to kraft singles, but white and unpasteurized. I always chucked at Liv’s food choices. She had more allergies than I knew existed, yet she was also a vegetarian BY CHOICE. Liv’s food pyramid went: Uncle Ben’s rice, hummus, garlic bread, mayo, hot sauce, and at the top: Cheese. If Liv was Jesus, cheese was Judas: The thing she loved the most was always her downfall. I’d never seen anyone who accidentally shit their pants more times than Liv, and more times than not, CHEESE WAS THE CAUSE!
Liv’s mom came back to us with two brown paper lunch bags, and a separate baggie with wet wipes, hand sanitizer, and a little beach shovel. She gave Liv a knowing glance that said “you better not shit your pants this time” and left to go tend to Stumpy who was muttering about how gay Italian men looked as they passed by on the street below.
The hike started out as a near vertical climb up a passage of stairs. One hour of our uphill wheezing later, we got to the top to see a little smokestack house resting peacefully and a tiny old lady sweeping around it. In that moment I realized why all the little Italian Nona’s lived to 500 years old; this was just their walk home from town. For the next few hours we winded our way through olive orchards and vineyard vines (not the douche-y frat brand) to find ourselves on a beautiful little pebble paved road with picnic tables lining its scenic ocean views. We decided it was a perfect place to stop for lunch. At this point we were ravenous! We swallowed our cheese sandwiches whole and wiped it up with fruit and iced tea. We rested awhile, talking about what it would be like to live on an Italian mountainside farm, or sailing on a catamaran in the turquoise Mediterranean Sea. Once we got moving again, it didn’t take long before we both noticed an unsettling rumble in our tummies.
Plastic bag of wet wipes and shovel in hand, we went searching for the perfect place to pop a squat. We noticed a narrow dirt path off of the pavement and decided, having seen no one on our hike thus far, that this path would be the most advantageous. Down down down we traversed, our eyes darting about, we searched up and down for off-road dips and divots to divulge our dastardly deed. Suddenly, perfection lay decaying in front of us. A tree, which seemed like it had been ripped from the ground by a giant, lay a few feet fallen to the left of us. Its roots were jutting skyward and under them, a massive hole, where the tree once stood from, gaped like a welcome invitation to be shat in. It was big enough and deep enough for the two of us! “YES!” I thought to myself, another epic nature crap for the books!
Liv and I ran to the hole, shimmied off our pants, and squatted gleefully. As we pooped, laughing merrily at our good fortune, the air stiffened: We were not alone. At first, it sounded like a swarm of cicadas speeding towards us. Then the hoots of tanned Italian bicycles came into view. There were dozens of them, all suited up in spandex, making their way on the very path we so foolishly chose to find a spot to poop; and here we were, two small girls, shitting cheese sandwiches, into a giant hole in the woods. I watched, one by one, each bicyclist realizing just what they had come upon. A few of them hooted at us. some swerved in alarm. One of them yelled something at machine gun Italian pace through cackles of shock. Neither of us knew what he said, neither of us wanted to know.
We continued the hike in fits of laughter. I’ve shit my romper on New Years eve in a crowd of people, I’ve soaked bus seats in traffic, and Liv let a wet one loose in front of the Ronald McDonald Charity House just steps from her apartment; but NEVER had either on of us shat in a hole in the ground for an entire Italian bicyclist team before! A few hours later we made it to the end of our hike, collected sea glass on the pebble beach of Liguria, and hitched a ride on a boat back to our home port. Once we got home we were met with a traumatized Sandy who regaled us on how Stumpy fell out of bed and the Italian Fire Department had to be called in order to pick him up. In that moment I felt lucky to be blessed with legs to squat with, and a friend to squat with by my side.
Copyright © 2020 by Emily Bollman
