A Biological Oddity? The Time I Only Pooped Once During an Entire Month in Minnesota

The First Time I Was Away from My Family Is When I Learned of My Superpower

When I was in 7th Grade, I decided to go off to summer camp. 

Now, growing up, I was used to day camp. I’d go out, play soccer around some cones, do team-building exercises, and maybe get yelled at for running while playing laser tag at Enchanted Castle (daytime fun for everyone).

But when some of my neighborhood friends decided to attend a month-long camp in the wilderness just outside of Bemidji, Minnesota (best known for their prolific cultivation of curling talent) I was all in.

Unfortunately, this was the first time I had spent any extended amount of time without my family. And, equally importantly (sorry mom and dad) it was the first time I had to deal with relieving myself solely in a public commode. 

Now, I’m a city dweller. In fact, I grew up with numerous bathrooms, more than enough to make sure I could take care of my business in privacy any time the need arose. 

So the combination of being separated from my family, and being forced to use extremely public and very barren facilities… well, it was emotionally taxing. 

I Suddenly Became a Shy Pooper

We were given three square meals a day, mostly buffet-style. The drink of choice was bug-juice, which was basically red Kool-Aid, but we were told the dye used to make the juice was made from ground-up bugs. 

Every day had various activities you had to sign up for. It’s the first time I shot a rifle (it was a .22 small-caliber gun in a range) and I could do archery.

We also had sailing, tennis, and other sports that don’t involve actual weapons.

But I also just could not get myself in the habit of using the bathroom in front of dozens of my peers. I became a shy pooper. 

There Were Good Times

During my time at camp, I spent 5 days biking up to Canada, camping along the way. I broke a fingernail on the first day of a three-day kayak trip (I finished the trip, but complained the whole way). I also got to go rock climbing outside as cars yelled at a bunch of children trying to get them to fall. 

Candy was forbidden at the camp, so everyone found ways for their family to sneakily mail in candy to them (one camper received a frisbee with candy taped to the bottom). Luckily, my cabin also had several campers who smuggled their own candy and other treats in their luggage. 

We waited until the last day to have a full-on party. We ate all the candy, and cut holes in glow sticks, sticking them on a string, and flinging them around, leaving the inside of our cabin an iridescent rave as we played music and ran off our sugar highs. 

It was the first time I ever had chicken-fried steak, which is delicious, and I made some friends along the way. I also heard a roommate shout a particularly vulgar line from a DMX classic song, which led to the 20-something councilor coming in to say, “Jake. You’re white. You’re 13. And you live in the suburbs.” 

He didn’t do any more rapping after that. 

It Was a Great Time, But I Was Homesick

For the entire time, I was only able to communicate with my family through letters. I wrote a letter every night, but I knew it would take three days to get back home, and another three days to get a response. 

I was having fun, but I was missing my family. You were not allowed to talk to them, but I played the pity called and used my father’s birthday as an excuse to make a tearful call home from the camp’s office. 

To this day, now that I’m out on my own, they laugh about how poorly I handled my first long period without them. And I felt like I was the only person at the camp who was feeling such homesickness. I was occasionally teased, but never too badly.

But What About My Bathroom Habits?

The bathrooms at this camp were…not very public. The showers had no stalls, and it was a bunch of teenagers in the woods who had no shame. 

But I had shame. Maybe it wasn’t the right kind of shame to have, but I waited until the facilities were empty before I showered, which might have begun my habit of taking three-minutes to shower which I maintain to this day. 

I also tried to limit my bowel movements. Which I did successfully. Maybe too successfully?

You have every right to assume I am making this up, but over the 30 days I spent in northern Minnesota, I dropped a number two exactly one time. Over the entire month. 

I didn’t mention it to anyone. Except to Henry. He was the chief cook at the camp. He would lead sing-a-long renditions of Lean on Me to bring us all together (and he had a great voice).

When we had a councilor pass away during a freak accident (which is another story for another time, but needless to say, harrowing for a 13-year-old), he talked us through it over dinner. He was genuine, sincere, and empathetic.

And he did make delicious meals. 

My meals, through sheer force of will on my part, lingered quite impressively. Too impressively.

After three weeks, I finally hit my crisis point. It was during a quiet time of the day. The open bathroom was empty. So I deposited pounds of waste in the woods just outside of Bemidji. 

It was… what you’d expect. Almost a month of bug juice, chicken-fried-steak, biscuits and all sorts of nutrition exiting my body in a way I’d describe as “Heavy. Slow and heavy.” It was the kind of experience that would change a person.

The next day, I told Henry, “I did my first poop since I’ve been here.” 

Keep in mind – Henry had witnessed, as had I, an 8th grader deciding to pour a full bottle of Tabasco into a bowl, chug it, and then chug a bottle of milk before running outside to puke. Henry did not blink. It did not rattle him.

But my admission did.

As I told Henry that I had my first release since I had arrived at the camp, in a year where he got to see a Tabasco puke and have to deal with a colleague suffering a horrible accident, he looked at me, holding a spatula and wearing an apron. He took a moment to think before saying, “What the hell is wrong with you!?”

I still don’t know the answer there. But I guess I have a superpower. I went a whole month homesick and with a full-colon. I don’t recommend it. It was not comfortable, and I probably lost 10 pounds when I decided to let myself address the situation.

That said…I learned how long I could hold it if it’s absolutely necessary. But my advice to you?

Be regular. It’s much nicer to have a daily release than to have a monthly clench. So don’t be like 13-year-old me, but let my story show you what you can achieve if you put your mind, and you colon, to it.