AMA with AMA: Answering YOUR Questions!
The lost history of the pee cloth + baking 'Everything Trail Bars'!
Dear Kula Diaries,
First off — I just want to thank all of you for participating in these weekly AMAs. Some of the questions/prompts that I have received bring me so much joy, and I’m actively looking for a way to ‘quit’ my day job so that I can sit around and answer all of them. They are so creative and fun, and I want you to know that it feels like a true collaboration of kindred spirits when I get the chance to write each week. It doesn’t feel like I’m writing for you… it feels like I’m writing with you… because you are inspiring such fun and insightful topics and (sometimes) mini-projects.
This week, I had far too much fun writing the lost history of the pee cloth. I was crying (with laughter) as I read this out loud to my husband — and he even got involved by contributing a few of the more enjoyable plot points.
Finally, I got to bake a delicious recipe that was suggested in the Kula Diaries Vault — it’s a perfect trail snack, so I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.
If you’d like to submit a question or prompt or just a random comment, you can do that anonymously in the Kula Diaries Vault. If you’d like a response, make sure to include your e-mail address.
Again, thank you all for being here! Ok… time for the questions…
Dear AMA,
Can you write about the alternate story where Kula Cloths were created hundreds of years ago, and the original one was called The Shroud of Urine? Feel free to write from the perspective of the original inventor, or from a modern-day museum curator.
<ahem> My name is Abalone Chesterfield the XII, Protector of the Pee Cloth, and I will be your guide on this remarkable — nay — life changing journey into relics previously unknown. Today, I will recount a story of old and a story of new — and how they crossed streams, so to speak, in an important way.
Our first stop on this journey is a relatively recent discovery of an archaeologist who would probably be world-renowned if more people know who she was. It is none other than archaeologist Dr. Figgy Smitthingsworth, author of the book They Peed Too: A Comprehensive History of Peeing . Dr. Smitthingsworth has devoted her life to the study of strange artifacts and oddities — particularly those that relate to the hygiene of humans. Many years ago, Dr. Smitthingsworth actually discovered a stick that was carved into a funnel, and it is believed to be the first pee funnel that was ever invented — dating back to the early Renaissance period, when people wore gigantic dresses and spent very little time hiking for recreation, because they couldn’t possibly understand why anybody would leave their home for an even worse home in the woods.
One might believe that individuals who wore bulky dresses might not have had a need for a pee funnel during the Renaissance, however, they would be wrong. During the Renaissance era, the attire of the population who primarily squatted to pee consisted of multiple layers: chemise, the dress, the over-dress, and, when in public, the cloak. Now, just imagine attempting to pee while wearing a ridiculous amount of bulky, heavy and completely pointless layers! It would have been nearly impossible, and/or required assistance. Thus, it is believed that an underground organization was formed — believed by most reputable historians to have been called Urine For The Dark Ages, which was, according to what they would have put on their website if they had one at the time, “A secret society devoted to providing educational resources and practical tools for those who are struggling to pee freely while wearing too many layers of heavy dresses.”
‘UFT-DA’ - as they lovingly referred to themselves — discovered that by taking a stick and carving it into a channel, one could make a ‘funnel’ that could easily be sewn into the base layer of the bulky clothing… allowing the user to simply pull it into place when needed and pee out the bottom of their dress. And thusly, the pre-cursor to the pee funnel was created. While evidence is somewhat limited, it is believed that this funnel was referred to as Thine Timber Tinkle, or more covertly, The Triple T. Due to the fact that people in those days were somewhat hesitant about openly discussing shameful things such as the fact that humans pee, the UFT-DA timber tinkle remained primarily an underground and secretive tool for hundreds of years.
One of the founding members of UFT-DA was a woman named Catherine de Pipi, who was a Renaissance pioneer in the world of peeing. In her personal notebooks, that were discovered by Archeologist Smitthingsworth, she writes (shockingly in English) about her urine distress:
Alas, Catherine de Pipi did not immediately stumble into the answer. Instead, she sprained her ankle by accidentally falling into one of the first flush toilets, which began to make their way into the homes of royalty in the late 1500’s. Because it took 7.5 gallons of water to flush one of these early toilets, the manufacturer at the time recommended that up to 20 people could use the toilet between each flush. Unfortunately, when Catherine tripped and fell over the toilet, she also contracted a strange illness, which led a Renaissance physician to utilize the Medieval Urine Wheel in order to give her an accurate diagnosis of Sickness of the Stomach plus Inflammation of the Humors and Mild Demonic Possession:
Catherine de Pipi was temporarily distracted from her pursuit of dryness by wiping by very rapidly needing a way to clean her butt, due to aforementioned Sickness of the Stomach. In an act of pure desperation, she discovered that if she straddled two different chairs while simultaneously using a stick to aggressively push down on a hand-held fireplace bellows and while having a trusted friend holding a bottle of water just above the nozzle of the fireplace bellows, she was able to create enough blast force to adequately wash the affected bum area from its pure and utter dismay. And thus, the portable bidet was born. It is rumored that Catherine di Pipi, upon experiencing the first high-powered blast of mostly clean Renaissance water that had only a 1/32nd chance of actually being septic water itself, exclaimed, “Huzzah!”. The fire bellows kit + water bottle were later marketed successfully as the “Huzzass-a-clean” and Catherine de Pipi went on a speaking tour to inspire other Renaissance women entitled:
One day, Catherine de Pipi was putting her Timber Tinkle into place and minding her own business while freely allowing her urine to flow out from underneath the 57 lbs of her 4 layered dress, when she had an idea: I’m going to take photographs of my Timber Tinkle as a joke to give to a friend!! This was, indeed, highly unusual, because the camera as we know it, had not yet been invented. However, Catherine de Pipi — in her infinite wealth from the sales of the Huzzass-A-Clean — had purchased a Camera Obscura, which is basically a mirror and a lens that allows you to paint very realistic images of things. This is the type of camera that Vermeer used in order to trick everybody into thinking that he could paint. And so, Catherine sat down and began to paint — except that the stick looked very lonely when she started.
“I don’t know,” she said longingly, “It’s just missing something.”
She started to cry a little bit at how lonely the stick looked, and she took out a small linen tissue to dab her eyes. As she held the small tissue in her hand, she realized that it would be the perfect companion for the stick in her painting.
“It’ll really soften the image,” she said out loud to nobody, because absolutely nobody cared that she was working on this project.
When you paint using a Camera Obscura, it takes approximately 759 hours to paint the first 4 square inches of the painting — and it was during this time, while Catherine di Pipi was painting the stick and the tissue, that she had yet another thought:
“I wish that looked cooler,” she thought to herself… even though she wasn’t really even sure what the word ‘cool’ meant. It just seemed to come from somewhere beyond herself.
Suddenly, as she looked through the lens and the mirror which were positioned in a strategic way in the wall, reflecting back onto her painting of the stick and the linen handkerchief… she had another idea:
“Why isn’t that a real piece of gear?”
She looked at the small piece of square linen handkerchief and, with a burst of energy coursing through her body, she knew what she had discovered: a way to keep dry after peeing with the Timber Tinkle.
“All I have to do is use the Timber Tinkle and then pat dry with this tiny square of linen! Then, I won’t have to drip dry, and the inside of my 4-layer dress won’t get disgusting. It will be the most important discovery of the entire Renaissance!”
Unfortunately, the government at the time was not very open to talking about peeing, and so they concocted a scandal with a scientist known as Galileo Galilei, whereby he pretended to support the Copernican system that the earth revolved around the sun. Except that when he started his research, he ended up inventing a telescope, and realizing that the sun actually was the center of our solar system. And so, the government decided to use the opportunity to get even more mad at themselves for being mad at Galileo Galilei… which detracted attention from the revolutionary woman who was trying to tell the world about her pee cloth. The days and months that followed her revelation were dark and treacherous — as numerous individuals, who were disgusted at her willingness to talk about the evil fluid that leaks from within the human body, attempted to chase her down and have her bludgeoned with moldy blobs from a batch of Kombucha that somebody in the nearest castle didn’t monitor properly. Luckily, Catherine was able to escape relatively unscathed. She turned to the members of UFT-DA to distribute her new pee cloth, which she called ‘The Shroud of Urine’ — because it was, indeed, covered in a shroud of controversy and darkness.
The Shroud of Urine became an essential item for anybody who squatted while peeing during the Renaissance period. In fact, it became not only an important piece of hygiene gear… but also a symbol of defiance and a willingness to talk about shameful matters such as urine. Details remain rather limited, but at some point during this ghastly journey, two of the members of the UFT-DA group accidentally purchased the same golden brooch of a very creepy looking cat. This cat became the de-facto symbol for users of The Shroud of Urine. These individuals used the cat pin to declare themselves as a ‘safe haven’ — humans who were willing to delve into the evil-goings-on of the human body.
The Shroud of Urine remained an essential and important piece of hygiene gear for people in the Renaissance. During one particularly groundbreaking moment, Catherine de Pipi approached artist Sandro Botticelli to see if he would be interested in a collaboration. Although Botticelli’s work is arguably ‘pretty good’ by most scholar’s standards, there remains confusion as to why Catherine de Pipi approached him first… and did not opt for a potential collaboration with Chester de Sublimacion, a local artist who didn’t have a large following, but was apparently good at making lots of copies of the same painting. Catherine de Pipi had written thusly in her journal:
Unfortunately, Botticelli was not interested — and not because he wasn’t interested in the 15% artist series commission on each piece, but because sublimation hadn’t been invented yet and hand painting each Shroud of Urine was going to be extremely time consuming.
The Shroud of Urine is a monumentally important piece of human history because it represents a small shift in the paradigm around human hygiene that went in opposition of the more traditional notion that urine and feces was ‘concentrated evil’ leaving the body. Catherine de Pipi was considered to be a pioneer of her time — and a pioneer of the ages. Unfortunately, her dedication to the world of peeing and pooping is only just coming to light and getting the recognition that it deserves. On a recent archaeological expedition to a place where the Renaissance happened, Dr. Smitthingsworth believes that she may have uncovered the one and only Shroud of Urine that miraculously survived for hundreds of years.
She reports, “Upon archaeological excavation of the long lost tomb of Catherine de Pipi, we discovered that, much to our shock… she had been buried with a backpack. On the outside of the backpack, was clipped her very own Shroud of Urine.”
In a detailed account of the excavation, Dr. Smitthingsworth describes that the Shroud of Urine was the most difficult item to remove from the tomb because, “The deceased skeleton hand of Catherine de Pipi was still gripping it very tightly. It was obvious that this was her most cherished possession.” To complicate the excavation even more … it was discovered that Catherine de Pipi had been buried with her pet dog and faithful hiking companion, Peepers. Peepers was discovered to be severely malnourished, and had to be quickly rushed to an emergency vet where he was treated for starvation and excessive dehydration — but a full recovery was expected.
The Shroud of Urine had to be handled with great care, due to the fact that it was a nearly 500 year old piece of linen. Dr. Smitthingsworth brought it back to her laboratory for analysis, and that was when she made the most shocking discovery of all:
“In addition to making the most significant discovery in the history of urine history, I want to report that we not only believe that this is the one and only specimen of the Shroud of Urine in existence… but it is also the one and only Artist Series Shroud of Urine that was ever created.”
In a unique turn of events, it appears that Catherine de Pipi had seduced Sandro Bottecelli into making her at least one artist series Shroud of Urine. As the photographs of this Shroud were developed, scientists throughout the laboratory could be heard weeping audibly out loud at the beauty of what they were witnessing.
“I mean, it was already the most beautiful square of linen I had ever seen… but now this?”
It appears that Boticelli, obviously moved by the overzealous efforts and dedication of Catherine de Pipi … was inspired to create a Shroud of Urine that paid homage to the cat brooch of the UFT-DA. The sentiment was so touching that scientists were seen clinging to each other in joy at the remarkable discovery of both the very first pee cloth and also a previously unknown painting of Botecelli, who primarily had painted in churches and not pee cloths. The energy of the moment was very similar to the exact energy of the moment when the thousands of scientists who had spent their entire careers and $10 billion to achieve the successful launch of the James Webb telescope into deep space started to cheer.
The Artist Series Shroud of Urine ultimately ended up where it rightly belonged: in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it shares a room with Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Unfortunately, the impact on the room has been significant. “Nobody even looks at Starry Night anymore,” the museum curator said, “So we might remove it and put it down in storage.” Hikers and backpackers and people who pee from all over the world now flock to the museum on a daily basis to pay homage to the simple, linen square that would pave the way for people to pee outside more comfortably.
“We don’t wear four-layer dresses anymore, but it doesn’t matter,” said Jessica Twinehearth, a hiker from Minnesota who had spent more than $2,000 of her dad’s money to fly to New York to visit the Shroud, “He probably hasn’t noticed yet”, she said, “At least I hope not.”
When asked if it was worth it, she looked stunned, “Are you kidding me? To see a piece of history like this? I bought a Kula Cloth last year… and I talk to people about peeing all the time. We should be able to talk about peeing without feeling bad. We should be able to go outside and pee in the woods if we want to. This is, without a doubt, the single most important discovery in human history. We all pee. Even Taylor Swift pees.”
These days, Dr. Smitthingsworth spends her time lecturing about hygiene and giving demonstrations of the Huzzass-a-Clean. She is currently focused on re-working the design so that hikers and backpackers will be able to carry a miniature fire bellows into the backcountry for proper irrigation and water-blasting of the bum region. Her fire bellows will be manufactured out of ultra light titanium, and she is hoping to have it available for purchase by the end of 2024. “It’s really my dream to bring back these Renaissance tools — but upgrade them a bit for the modern day hiker. The Timber Tinkle is going to come back too, but this time, it’ll be carbon fiber.”
Catherine de Pipi and Sandro Botticelli remain entombed in their tombs, and while they are not buried in the same location, their connection appears to be eternal because all collaborations are eternal. Last year, the unbelievably successful modern day pee cloth company, Kula Cloth, created a replica version of the Shroud of Urine in order to honor the contribution of Catherine de Pipi. A team of archaeologists descended into Catherine di Pipi’s hidden tomb to present it to her dead skeleton as a gift, even though people assured them that they didn’t need to do it, because Catherine de Pipi had been dead for almost 500 years and would likely not care about the gesture. Kula Cloth founder Anastasia Allison was a part of the team that entered the tomb, “Well, it was really dusty down there, but it was also really beautiful, in a very dusty way. I opened her skeleton hand and slipped the Shroud of Urine Kula Cloth around one of her knuckle joints. We all stood around and said some nice things about peeing and what she has done for the world of peeing. It was a very special tribute.”
As for me, Abalone Chesterfield XII, Protector of the Pee Cloth — well, I’m just the lowly museum attendant that has made the bold decision to devote my life to the protection of the Shroud of Urine. I had worked as one of those people in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a long time — you know, the people in the 1970s vintage burgundy pant suits that yell at you when you are 10 years old, visiting New York City, and your eccentric Italian Grandmother reaches out and literally attempts to touch an oil painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for absolutely no reason whatsoever and now you are unbelievably embarrassed and then you stick your hands in the sleeves of your shirt to pretend that you have no arms, in the hopes that your lack of arms will distract people from the fact that your Grandmother literally just attempted to touch a Da Vinci painting with her bare finger … you know, that kind of person. Some say we are the ‘The Metropolitan Museum’ of Art Party Poopers, but that’s a little bit more casual. At any rate, I was sick and tired of yelling at people with their out of control grandmothers, and when the Shroud of Urine arrived — I knew I had found my calling. I’ve been permanently stationed in this room now, and I’m an expert docent in the realm of peeing, pee cloths, and anything having to do with pee. This is my life’s work, and it is truly an honor.
Peepers, the formerly severely malnourished and dehydrated beloved hiking companion of Catherine de Pipi was most recently seen on social media with Mercedes de Pipi — Catherine de Pipi’s Great Great Great Great Great Granddaughter, and the heiress to the Pipi fortune. Mercedes shared her latest hike in her Instagram stories, and Peepers was seen leaping from rock to rock and bounding up and down the trail — with the energy that only a dog who was wrongly entombed for 500 years (4,000 dog years) could exude. “He’s so happy”, Mercedes exclaimed while making fish lips and giving a completely unnecessary peace sign and head tilt to the camera, “I’ve never seen a dog so happy in my entire life.”
P.S. If you are the one who submitted this fun prompt, please let me know — I’d love to send you the Shroud of Urine Kula!
Dear AMA,
Would you make these trails bars (https://amandaoutside.com/everything-trail-bars/)? And if you do, how do they compare to the Kula Chocolate Chip Cookies Reci-pee?
The short answer is: yes. I will absolutely bake anything and everything. I love baking and, most recently, I’ve been on a bit of a ‘blondie’ kick. In the past few weeks I’ve made espresso hazelnut blondies (with a layer of nutella), funfetti blondies, butterscotch oatmeal blondies and banana chocolate blondies. They are easy to make, and I love to freeze them… and then slice them into small chunks and eat them at night with my evening yogurt and berries and granola mixture.
It’s probably not a surprise to most of you (who have been here awhile) that I love to bake. My affinity for raw dough and chocolate chip cookies is unparalleled, and I approach my weekly baking activities with gusto.
This week, however, I was given an assignment to bake the aforementioned ‘everything trail bars’ — so I’m going to do that first… and give my official verdict on their deliciousness.
I’ll make a quick note about what I did that was slightly different:
I used Picky Oats ‘Trail Mix Fix’ in place of 'plain oatmeal
I used pumpkin seeds, sliced almonds, chopped walnuts + golden raisins as my ‘mix-ins’
I wanted to use (but didn’t, in order to maintain the original integrity of the recipe):
butterscotch chips and/or a chopped chocolate bar
So, how were they? They were DELICIOUS! These are much tastier than the AI-suggested ‘eco-friendly sustainable’ cookies from a few weeks ago (which tasted mostly dust-like). These bars are chewy and delicious and packed with different textures and a deliciously sweet flavor. They were delicious warm and they were also delicious frozen. As a bonus, they freeze really well and they are ‘chewy’ when frozen, so they were easy to slice and nibble on with my yogurt.
If I make them again (which I definitely would), I think I’d add some chocolate or butterscotch chips… or maybe I’d experiment with some different types of nuts or dried fruit to put in the bar. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can really just use anything that you have on hand, so you probably have most of the ingredients in your cabinet right now. If I were to describe the flavor, I’d say that these tasted like a decadent oatmeal raisin cookie that was ‘more substantial’ than the rather wimpy oatmeal raisin cookies that we are accustomed to. Also, Amanda Outside (where the original recipe came from) has some other really amazing camping recipes on her website — what a fun resource to discover!
And now the big question: how do they compare to the Kula Cloth Chocolate Chip Cookie? Well, again, not much can compare to that. And by ‘not much’, I mean, ‘absolutely nothing’. I will forego any other sweet option in the world for those cookies — and that includes skipping a birthday cake, because the cookies are much more enjoyable than a cake (although if you make a really amazing cake, I still might try it). I have yet to find a desert that I like more than the cookies. These bars, however, fall into the category of ‘all purpose trail bar’ — they would work well as a desert, but they’d also be a perfect mid-hike snack, so I think that trying to lump them into a category with the most delicious desert of all time is probably unfair. I want to make sure to give these bars the accolades that they deserve — so I would highly recommend baking them (because they seriously are really good) … and then feel free to enjoy a cookie on Pizza and Cookie Day each week with me (you’ll love it).
Friends — as always, thank you so much for being here each week and for suggesting fun topics that are exciting to write about and/or bake about. It brings me a lot of joy to be able to share a tiny slice of fun with all of you, and I am infinitely grateful for the laughter that I had this week while writing.
I hope that you all find some ease, peace and joy in your week. I’m sending you all a lot of love.
P.S. If you live in the PNW, The Musical Mountaineers are performing LIVE on June 15th at the NW Stream Center, we would love to see you there!
😂😂😂 this is such good creative writing!! ❤️❤️. Speaking of trail bars, I have a recipe called Trail Mix Cookies that I think was in Backpacker magazine that are very yummy. I’ll see if I can send it to you.