Why I'm Glad I'm Not a Pioneer

Tonight while I was getting ready for bed and adjusting the faucet to just the right temperature for washing my face, I thought of the pioneers for some reason. Probably because I was obsessed with Little House on the Prairie as a child, but every now and then it occurs to me how amazingly easy we have it, how convenient everything is for us these days. I mean, not only did the early settlers not have a faucet for getting their water to the perfect temperature, they didn't even have running water in the house. They had to go to the creek or the well or something and then haul it up to the house. And then I'm guessing they had to brace themselves to wash their faces with cold water, or heat it on the stove and then wait until just the right moment in the cooling process in hopes that it would be warm. Probably lots of them just gave up and didn't bother washing their faces before they went to bed.

This got me thinking about outhouses and what a pain it was just to go to the bathroom (just thinking of the unsanitary conditions makes me want to run for the Clorox!) Yesterday I went to flush the toilet and the handle did that thing where it just gives up and slumps down like a kid who's in trouble. I took the lid off immediately, proud of myself for understanding the simple workings of a toilet, prepared to reach down into that water and reconnect the chain that had become disconnected from the flusher dealie (see my extensive knowledge about toilets?). Only, when I lifted the lid, I discovered that that plastic piece that connects the chain to the flusher dealie had snapped in half! This was, of course, disappointing, because now I would have to go in search of a new flusher-dealie connector piece. humph. K and I meant to get around to getting this piece today, but the day got away from us and here we are a whole day later, lifting the lid off the toilet each time we need to flush. The logical part of my brain reminds me that this water has never actually come in contact with the toilet bowl. "Go ahead, reach into it!" it tells me. "It's clean, it's clean, it's clean!" However, the OCD part of my brain says, "You are now reaching into toilet water. Water on the inside of a toilet. Do NOT let your wrist enter this water. Unclean! Unclean!!!" My brain seems to have worked out a compromise: the logical part coaches me through the reaching into the water to grab the chain part, and the OCD part insists that I wash my hands at least twice in quick succession after completing this task.

Tomorrow we will track down a new plastic piece, and in a couple of days, this disgusting little routine will be a distant memory. My brain will go back to thinking about more important things. Until then, I'll pretend that I'm a pioneer, braving the elements. I always thought I would have made a great pioneer. I would like to go on thinking that, but I must admit that my standards for bravery are quite a bit lower than they would need to be if I had to head out into the night and risk running into a rattlesnake on my way to the outhouse...