To Bidet…or not to Bidet?

Screw a hunk of rubber onto your water bottle, walk 200 feet away from the trail as well as any water sources, dig a six-to-eight-inch deep by five-inch wide hole, annnnd GO!

My considerations of using a trail bidet ended there.

My imagination rarely allowed me to take the matter further. But when it did, my concerns could be summed up singularly: contamination.

Splashback. Invisible crawling bacteria on hands, clothes, shoes, not to mention the water bottle.

And I wasn’t clear on what the future held for that poor water bottle? Was I supposed to drink out of it later? Tucking the bidet away, attaching a Sawyer Squeeze, and guzzling pristine water through my filter while tiny unseen friends clambered over each other in a race down the outside of my bottle towards my open mouth?

I’ve eluded the Norovirus so far, and I hope to keep it that way.

Maintaining an aversion to all excretions north and south benefits many a hiker, delaying the seemingly inevitable first bout of sickness. I’ve eluded the Norovirus so far, and I hope to keep it that way. Me sick=whiny baby. Multiply times ten if I have a stomach bug.

If I should ever encounter a stomach bug in the woods, I will not hike, I will not be cheerful and brave. I will pitifully beg startled passersby to feel sorry for me in my time of need. And they will keep hiking, perhaps more quickly. I will ask my sister, Walkie, to get me a ginger ale from the nearest vending machine. I will request that she place her cool hand on my funky forehead, and she will abstain and look on me from afar with love and disgust.

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