If only it were that easy, Calvin
I’m back ladies and gentleman with yet another entry about a seemingly mudane
(edit: crude) but astonishingly deep issue that strikes us all when it is most inconvenient: whether it be at the bar when you are hitting out of the park with an attractive member of the opposite sex (highly unlikely) or you are stuck in a long car ride having mistakenly thought you could down 5 Pacific Cooler Capri Suns before the ride (much more likely.) You told yourself you’d only have one, but they are just so damn delicious and there’s only like 2 ounces of fluid in that $5.00 pouch of sugar water. Either way, we’ve all ridden the “Holdin’ It” express. But I’m here to break down this process, as it goes beyond simply one bad decision. Rather, it is a consistent sequence of dumb fuckery that we should know better to engage in at this point, but our stubborn biological circuitry refuses to arrange itself in a more advantageous manner.
Stage 1: Invincibility Complex- This quirk of human personality goes all the way back to when you were a poorly planned idea in the minds of your parents after a drunken night out. Despite all evidence that we will fail at a forthcoming endeavor or that the statistical likelihood of a negative outcome is all but going to occur as a result of our incompetence, we have a built in, “Fuck it, I can do it” switch. I’m guilty of this as much as the next guy. During high school, my friends and I thought chugging various liquids at top speed would result in much machismo and ascension on the social hierarchy. I mean, random dudes on YouTube completed these beverage based tasks to the adoration of millions of viewers and much worship in the comments section. We can totally pull off some awesome hijinks right? Holy shit, were we ever wrong. All we ended up with was a puke stained drive way. And by “we,” I mean my idiot friend who goaded me into trying to pound 5 Gatorades in 2 minutes. He provided the driveway, I the puke. Hope his driveway still smells like shit. Long story short, we think we can do stuff when we really just can’t, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.
Stage 2: Shaky Foundation- This is when the seeds are doubt are growing in your mind, and that tiny, almost indiscernible part of your brain screams at you to cease and desist your current endeavor because this is the grain of rice that tips the scale, or the Coors Light that will have you crossing your legs so hard you injure a testicle just so that you don’t publicly piss your pants. Contrary to the events in Billy Madison, peeing your pants is NOT COOL. You have wear a sodden, pair of pants that reek like all holy hell, much to the displeasure of the general public. At least with a smelly fart you can feign ignorance pretty easily. You piss yourself, no getting away with that. You are wearing a puddle of evidence my friend. But you go ahead and do it anyway. Like order the buffalo chicken pizza telling yourself you won’t get an extra large coke, like saying you won’t eat all the ice cubes at the bottom on your drink, like telling the neighborhood kids at the corner you’d like to have more homemade lemonade for a quarter even though you have to drive all the way up to your friends lake house 2 hours away in LackofSociety, New Hampshire (…that one didn’t come from personal experience…no way…in my defense they were using ENORMOUS kitchen glasses that took out 1/3rd of the pitcher every time. For a quarter. I would have been a fool to pass it up.)
Stage 3: Desperation Bargaining- Either publicly or privately (but most often publicly, much to the chagrin of your current company,) you begin to make every concession in the book, just for the opportunity to void your bladder as quickly as possible. Often pleas to some sort of divine figure are made, but as if the cosmos finds your situation extremely enjoyable, every possible avenue of conventional piss taking are off limits to you. Bathroom at a fast food joint? Every stall is taken, the janitor refuses to clean the floor faster than a glacial pace, or theres a homeless guy taking a nap in the most inconvenient spot possible. Forrest all along the side of the highway? There’s just so happens to be a massive traffic jam where you can’t even begin to stomach the public shame of being seen running for the forest cradling your crotch in front of all these strangers despite the abdominal agony. Out for the night at a bar? The second you make a move for the bathroom you are besieged by a long lost contact, usually a Facebook lurker, that deems it the perfect time to catch up on the meaningless occurrences in their life that have no bearing on you whatsoever. Like I said, the second you build “The Shaky Foundation” the universe will act like you spat in its eye and fuck with you relentlessly.
Stage 4: Transformation into Satan Incarnate- There are a lot of exceptionally angry people out there, like belligerent drunk bro daddy’s at a frat party who want to fight someone the minute they get some beer in them to compensate for their insecurity or every single cab drive in the city of New York. But I’d be hard pressed to find one more irrational or dangerous than a person on the verge of pissing themselves. It’s like the activating that human primal survival instinct but instead of fighting for their very survival, the person is simply trying to preserve their social standing and not be known as the person who pissed themselves that one time. So every good grace and semblance of civility has vanished in the search of one spot where they can relieve themselves in peace. This includes screaming obscenities at people trying to help you, throwing elbows into people impeding your path, or making vicious threats to anyone who would dare halt your search of whatever you happen to deem a bathroom.
The aformentioned past Sean, having past all of the stages listed here, found himself in the ass crack of rural New Hampshire, big line of traffic all trying to get to the lakes region in the summer time. I had convinced myself that I could be civil, that I would find a suitable bathroom and do my business peacefully. Well, I violently pulled into a small parking lot, burst through the doors of a diner, nearly braining a little kid trying to get a gumball. I am sweating balls, doing a miniature tap dance, begging my internal plumbing to hold together. The snide as shit waitress asks…
Bitch: “Can I help you sir?”
Me: “Yes please, I just need to use your bathroom.”
Bitch (smirks )“I’m sorry, paying customers only.”
Me: “Seriously, I really have to pee, I’ll buy something when I come out.”
Bitch (looks over my shoulder) “Table for..how many, ma’am?
At this point I lost it. I usually can hold my composure in public because I don’t enjoy making a scene. But in a very out of character moment, I went berserk. I’m sure I was the talk of that little town for quite some time afterwards, and I maintain that the rage instilled within me was entirely the fault of my bladder, which I’m convinced was rupturing, and a snarky female who enjoyed the small modicum of power she had over me. Paraphrasing since it was a while ago, but this is roughly the message I conveyed
Me: “If you do not let me use your bathroom in the next 10 seconds, I swear to god I will piss my pants right here in the middle of your restaurant. I don’t care, at this point it will be worth it to watch you have to get a mop and wipe up a puddle of my piss. So either you either let me use the bathroom or ruin everyone’s afternoon including yours because all they smelled during their lunch was urine.”
Suffice to say, it was very awkward after that. It was as silent as a funeral procession as I was begrudgingly handed the key to the men’s room. I used the facilities, washed my hands, handed the key back to the extremely agitated waitress, and left. I think she screamed something about me buying something, I don’t know, like hell I was going to help her out. For the record, I pissed all over that toilet seat, so I win.
The moral of the story is this. We are all in a permanent Stage 1 state. But due to the sensitive nature of the universe and how readily that uncomfortable “have to pee” sensation can cripple us, listen to that little voice and don’t build a shaky foundation. We all now know where it leads: to you angrily berating a waitress at a rural New Hampshire diner. You don’t want that.
