Don’t Not Pee in Your RV

“The trouble happens,” said the guy who worked at the store where I bought the sewage hose, “when people don’t pee in it.” The toilet, that is, in the bathroom of a recreational vehicle, which maybe people don’t pee in so their waste takes up less space in the holding tank. Maybe so they’ll have to empty it less often. But without that liquid, the waste in the tank “turns into a solid brick that won’t move and that’s when it starts to smell and sewage backs up into your house.”

He looked really disturbed when he said this, shaking his head and closing his eyes as if trying to unsee something, and I can't right in this moment think of something more unpleasant either than solid stuck sewage backing up through the toilet into my house, which sounds like some sort of sentient, very gross horror-movie monster whenever someone says this to me. And it must happen sometimes, because people have said this to me—totally unsolicited—more than once.

Take up the space. Take up all the space that your body naturally needs—in your sewage holding tank.

In the world.