This is a completely made up story that in no way actually happened ever and definitely not this weekend to anyone I know.
Once there was a young mom. Well, young-ish. Okay, middle-ish mom with young children. Okay, once there was a mom who drove to the lake with her hubby and kids and their big plastic canoe strapped to the top of their car. This mom decided to drink a large quantity of sweet tea before arriving at the lake with the canoe and the lack of bathrooms.
Sweet tea is the magical nectar of the South, but it’s also like the diuretic from hell. The devil went down to Georgia and while he was rosining up his bow and challenging Johnny to a duel, he also put something in our tea that makes us spend half a day in the bathroom. The full name of sweet tea is actually sweet daisies I’ve gone to the bathroom nineteen times today tea. True story.
As the hubby unloaded the canoe from the top of the car and the kids splashed on the shoreline of the lake, the young mom, shut up this is my story, extremely young and youthful mom despaired. She watched as her kids frolicked with their elastic bladders not experiencing extreme amounts of sweet tea torture. She looked longingly at the nearby woods and thought to herself, if only she could sneak off to those inviting trees just for a moment.
One moment in time. She heard Whitney Houston calling to her. Give her one moment in time, when she’s racing with destiny, then in that one moment of time, she would be, she would be, she would be free. Free from pee.
Just one moment. If she could just race over, find a spot out of the way, and get rid of the hateful sweet tea that had run through her like a juggernaut and was jamming its sweet tea needles of pain into her teeniest of bladders, if she could just find a moment and a spot, then all her problems would be over forever. She, too, could frolic and be the amazing mom of which she was capable, but for the blinding torment of the sweet tea-filled teeny bladder.
Before her she had a choice. Seize her moment, or risk hanging her butt over the side of the canoe later on.
In this completely fabricated in no way true story, she decided to go for it. Taking off along the tree line, she scanned the parking lot for witnesses. The four parked school buses seemed empty. The cars, trucks, and boat tows, all empty. The nearby houses, empty. She was clear. Donning her oversized sunglasses and keeping a sharp eye out for camera phones, she ducked into the woods. As she began to skid in her flip flops, she realized that it was a steep ravine and she could not go as far in as she liked.
She settled for a larger tree, and squatting down, she deftly scooted her norts (Nike shorts, for anyone who doesn’t hang out with teenage girls) out of the way and blasted out the evil sweet tea. The yellow drained out of her eyes, her vision cleared, and her breathing returned to normal. She was saved.
She didn’t even consider the pine needle toilet paper lying to her right and left, because this was not her first rodeo and she knew what that meant. Pine sap and pokey needles had no business up in her business and she trusted that the wicking fabric of the norts she got on the clearance rack at Ross would work its magic.
Life was good again. This fictional woman heard fictional birdies singing totally made up songs.
As she bounded out of the woods with a spring in her step, her heart plunged when she saw the man in the car right in front of her eating a sandwich and smiling at her. Oh crap of holiness.
Many thoughts vied for attention in her imaginary mom brain.
First, step confidently like you’re not embarrassed in the least. Work it, work it, own it. You’ve got this. You’re not ashamed.
Second, without looking back at the trees from whence you came, how far in was that spot you chose?
Third, at what angle was this guy seeing you squat? You were low, he was higher up, so he was looking down at you. Top of your head? Pants around the ankles? Naked white bum? How bad was this?
Fourth, he had a sandwich in one hand. What about the other one? Camera phone? Did he work for Park Pee-er Patrol (P.P. Patrol for short) and he’s on the lookout for miscreants like me?
She smiled ruefully back, prayed to Jesus that he didn’t care and/or have a camera phone, and kept walking, rejoining her family and taking up her seat at the front of the canoe.
It should be illegal to have a park without bathrooms. Or, it should be legal to urinate in public.
Did someone snap off photographic proof?
Will this fictional event be forever immortalized in someone’s hypothetical Facebook album?
These were the risks she had to face, for her very life, and the walls of her bladder, depended on it.
What would you have done?
