[Ansteorra] Privy Authorization Cards

[Tim McDaniel]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2011, Aislinn <aislinnofcravenhest at yahoo.com> wrote:
> A shudder just went through me.  What if you needed an
> Authorization card to access the garderobe and the Bureaucrat in
> charge could not find your member number?

I once talked to a couple who had studied suicide in the Middle Ages
and Renaissance.  (The rate went up with the Renaissance, BTW; they
speculated that it was increased individuality, plus generally not
being physically alone in the Middle Ages.)

They were working on one document in a difficult hand; they made out
the word "hanged" but later "drowned".  When they decoded it: it
described how someone had taken a rope out to the privy (probably
because it was the only private place a person could ever have), tied
a noose, threw it over a roof plank and tied it, stepped off the seat
... and the plank broke.

That's not so freaky an accident.  My mother tells the story of
playing behind her school in rural North Carolina in the early 1930s.
She and a friend were hiding in a school privy from the boys, when her
friend slipped in.  My mother had to go screaming for help, first to
the boys, then to her father, because her friend was going under.
(Her friend got LOTS of washing, in cold water as it happened.)  And
school was out for summer at the time, so the privy had had rest time.

Portapotties look a lot safer now ...

Danyell Lincoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com