Boscibo, it depend on where you do your degree. I know a guy who did his degree in Florida, they never have any overnight field trips. It don’t work that way at Las Vegas (UNLV)
Of course you have water to brush your teeth and wash your face. I used a soup bowl for washing my face.
Brushed my teeth by taking a cup of water, wet toothbrush add paste, sip water spit, brush as normal, spit, sip and rinse mouth, rinse toothbrush by swishing around in cup o’water, dump cup out. Place toothbrush in ziplock bag to keep bugs and dirt out
At first it is kinda hard to deal with, I was (and still am a bit of a girly girl*), but it gets easier to deal with the more you do it, IMO.
*I even wore eyeliner in the field, I know I am lame…
I’ve done that too, for day trips… hey, you never know who else might be there. And I DID bring a hair dryer with me, always (much to my advisor’s chagrin). I just didn’t usually have the chance to use it.
During my Salty Seadog era I was often on sea for around a month at a time. One time I only showered once or twice during 28 days on sea, we had a storm for most of the time, I almost had to tie myself into my bed to sleep and showering was a hazardous activity at best. Besides, you stop noticing the smell after a while and who do I need to be clean for? All the chicks?
After we landed after 28 days on sea, on my way home to shower, I went to visit my friends who were working in a tiny information center. They kicked me out within a minute because people actually ran out when I entered. I had to throw away every piece of clothing I used for that tour, just as well since it was my last time on sea to date. This was a Man’s Odor, I tell you. A Real Man’s.
I think 3 days. I’m a little foggy on the exact number because one of those days was spent flying over the Atlantic. It was when my high school Latin class took a trip to Italy and Greece. The first night we were stuck in a slightly disreputable hotel in New York and I thought I’d have time to shower in the morning. Nope. Then we were in JFK all day waiting for our plane to leave and then we were stuck on the tarmac all night waiting for a replacement altimeter to be flown in from St. Louis. When we finally got to Rome, I claimed that shower. It felt good. I was starting to get stinky on the plane.
Mine is somewhat similar, but in the Saudi and Kuwaiti desert. Gulf War, Episode One. We had the chemical decontamination vehicles come into our camp for people to get showers over two days about a month into the stink fest. Being a Battery XO, I coordinated a bunch of people in my battery to go on the first day, I was going to go on the second day. But a sandstorm kicked up that night and the vehicles went away. I was shower and bath-less from probably about December 29th or so to March 6th or 7th, when I got back to our battalion HQ where they had deisel immersion heaters in trash cans over a shower stall. Water was scarce out in the desert, but we did “whore’s baths”* and handi-wipes every other day. Then we’d put on the uniform that stunk the least.
I developed Mulluscom Contagiosum in my crural area, which leads to a funny story about Navy medicine.
*Whore’s bath in a sponge/washcloth bath from a small bucket, hitting the high points only.
14 days. After I had surgery on my knee, I would regularly get a “bath” using little wet strips, but no soap. They didn’t do a thing for BO, and I still felt sticky, sweaty and just generally nasty afterwards. When I was finally well enough to get all my tubes taken out and get out of bed, the first thing I asked for was for the nurse to wrap my knee so I could finally take a hot, soapy shower.
That shower was the turning point between feeling like a patient, and feeling like an ordinary guy who just has to stay in a hospital room.
About 5 days for me, when I was on a long backpacking trip. Man, was I nasty. My pits were really smelly, and my clothes reeked and had to wash them a couple of times. The worst was my hair though. It gets so greasy, even after one day. After 5 days, it was so greasy, it looked as if it were wet! Also, I think it’s tough being a woman and not being able to wash your private parts
Gulf War, Episode One I’ve not heard it referred to that way before…thanks for the laugh!
I was referring to episode one myself…my showerless interlude started in Saudi sand, and ended up in Kuwaiti sand…spent only a couple of days in the Iraqi sand…since George B. the first, in his infinite wisdom, decided to not to let us take Baghdad.
6 days. It was Warrior Week in basic training. The showers were freezing cold and never failed to flood the entire damn latrine, so you couldn’t set your uniform anywhere. I stuck to baby wipes and Tinactin.
When we got back, our TI made us shower for at least 10 minutes apiece. (I got lucky; a lot of TI’s are fond of putting their flights on their faces as soon as they get off the bus. With a full duffel bag on their backs :eek: .)
…In northern New Mexico I was attending a search and rescue school. We were in the mountains for about 10 days. No showers during that time. We all knew we were going to be gone for that long, so we all had baby wipes to keep relatively clean.
Without significant lashings of real water?
Four days, and like sublight, it was associated a hospital stay. Figure that one out. I had abdominal surgery, with the usual post-op grogginess and searing pain. Just sitting up was a dizzying ordeal, much less actually walking or standing for long.
Feeling grubby on top of it was just awful. It was a long time ago, and I had very long hair, but I remember my sister used some sprinkled, brush-through hair product that supposedly was as good as washing. It just felt like corn starch that left the grease behind. Yuck.
I didn’t feel human until I got home and carefully splashed around in the bathtub, the bandage across my stomach carefully, if inexpertly, Scotch-taped off with kitchen film wrap.
It felt so wonderful to finally be clean. I slept like a baby that night.
I think it’s possible that I have gone 3 or 4 days, like when I had the flu or was camping or something to that effect. I will skip a day or two occasionally.
Upon reading this thread, I realized that I hadn’t showered today. Being Saturday, with nothing to really leave the house for and nobody coming over, I just never got around to it. However, after reading this thread, I think it I’m going to go take one.
And I DID bring a hair dryer with me, always (much to my advisor’s chagrin). I just didn’t usually have the chance to use it.