Nightly trips to the outhouse

This photo was on Facebook this morning and it brought back so many memories.

During the hot summer the yellow jackets would be down in the hole and every time I sat on the toilet I lived in fear that they were going to sting my fanny and I would try to hurry and I always tried not to set all the way down where they could get out and not be blocked by my fanny..I mean come on it might turn into a war to get me to remove my fanny where they could get out...scary time!

The other biggest memory I have is that we had an small irrigation ditch between the house and the potty. I was terrified of the dark in those days and I hated having to go potty.  The ditch did not always have water in it, only when dad was irrigating.

One dark scary night I was headed for the potty and as I was going over the ditch a hand came out and grabbed my leg. Needless to say I woke up the neighbors a mile away and no longer needed to go to the potty house. My brother had laid down in the ditch and when I came over he had grabbed my leg...oh those red headed brothers big brothers.........

After that evening I was even more afraid to make my nightly trip. I usually don't use a flashlight as I have good night vision but after that night I would take the flashlight and I would turn in circles all the way to the potty watching everything.

I was doing my spinning in a circle walk to the potty when all of a sudden I caught a reflection of the biggest eyes I have ever seen in my life. I yelled bloody murder at the stop of my lungs again waking up the neighbors for 10 miles. I dropped the flashlight and made a b-line for the house yelling the whole way. My dad came running and I was crying and trying to tell him how big these eyes were and a monster was out there.

Now keep in mind my dad worked long hours and farmed to boot and was extremely tired of having to rescue me on my nightly trip. He had really thought I was hurt or something wrong. He grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the monster with the big eyes as I fought and tugged he kept telling me I was safer at night then during the day. At night I could run and hide from something but during the day I was always exposed.  Yeah right!  Now I believed that.

We finally got to where I told him the monster was and he flipped the flashlight on the big eyes.....there stood the tractor that he had parked there, its headlights reflecting back at me.  I felt so totally stupid and you now what. It worked, I have not been afraid of the dark since that night.