Once there was a young mom. Well, young-ish. Okay, middle-ish mom with small children. Medium children. Okay, once there was a mom who drove to the lake with her husband and kids and their big plastic canoe strapped to the top of their van. 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 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 her husband unloaded the canoe from the top of the car and the kids splashed on the shoreline of the lake, the mom despaired of The Bladder that Pregnancy Killed. She used to be able to hold her water with the best of them, but as payment for birthing a human, her bladder was basically a leaky store-brand sandwich baggy. 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 cast out the hateful sweet tea that had run through her like a juggernaut, if she could just find a moment and the right 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 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. What if she fell in the lake? Canoes are tricky buggers, because they seem relatively easy-access until you’re trying to hoist your waterlogged self back in while treading water and muttering anti-leech incantations.
She decided to risk the woods. Taking off along the tree line, she scanned the parking lot for witnesses. The four parked school buses seemed empty, to her relief. No one wants jail time for mooning a school field trip. Although in jail they do have bathrooms right there in the cells, she mused.
