Camping and Animals - an animal encounter

So, I was talking with a co-worker today about what each of us did over the weekend.  I spent Saturday night in the City with some friends, eating, drinking, dancing, and frolicking.  She spent the weekend camping.  I almost laughed out loud when she said she was camping.  I think my exact response to her was, "Camping, like sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag, and cooking food over a camp fire camping?"  She laughingly said, "Yes, and I even helped set up the tent!"  She is definitely a person whom I would not expect to voluntarily go camping.  She said she had a great time.  They went for a hike to a lake, and it looked so majestic that she just jumped in with her clothes on!  That part sounds fantastic to me.

Hearing her tale of camping made me remember one camping trip (of many) when I was young.  I actually grew up camping all over California with my family - some of it was car-camping in spots that had hot showers, toilets, and running water.  Some of it was driving into the middle of the Mojave Desert and pulling off the road and pitching a tent - no toilet (unless you consider the hole you dig in the ground a toilet), no running water, no defined campground, nothing.  Well, one of these trips was to Morro Bay - a small town on the central California Coast, close to San Luis Obispo.  I loved camping there.  One of the day trips we would take was to Montaña de Oro - an area that has beach access, and hiking along the bluffs above the beach.  On this particular trip, we were hiking along the bluffs, and my brother and I had to use the bathroom.  There was one spot with a pit toilet - literally an outhouse with a toilet seat and a big, yucky, smelly, nasty hole in the ground.  So, there were 2 stalls, and my brother and I were each in one, and for some reason, I looked down before I sat down, and saw a snake writhing in the filth.  Yes, a snake slithering around in the ickiness in the pit toilet.  Scared the crap (not literally) out of me.  I think I screamed and my brother jumped out of his stall to see what the problem was.  I pointed out the snake.  We both were too freaked out to use the pit toilet.

I can't remember how old I was when that happened, but it scared and scarred me for life.  Now, literally any time I use the restroom, I check the toilet for snakes.  I have some unfathomable fear that a snake will jump up out of the toilet bowl and bite me in the ass.  Mind you, that has never happened, and I have never again seen a snake in a toilet, but judging by a quick google image search of "Snake in toilet", and the enormous amount of images the search produced, snakes do, in fact, go in toilets, and it is possible for one to bite you in the ass.

Look before you sit people.  That is all.