I couldn’t help but notice that my entire comment section a while back devolved into a forum for men complaining about having to pee too often, not being able to pee, taking pee drugs that sent their ejaculate sideways—really, lots of things related to their penises that were not as much fun as the marketing for the original equipment had promised. That is their right as penile-Americans; I’d complain too if it felt like I was “peeing through a cinderblock.”
But my original post was about the Bible. I’m not sure what I could have written about that would have gotten a different result. Apparently, peeing occupies much of our attention, especially as we, uh, mature. It’s a Going Concern, if you will.
We’re all vested. The entire point of peeing and pooping is to get rid of stuff you’ve taken in but aren’t going to use. You’re downsizing. There are hoarders among us, but it doesn’t work out well for them. Ask Elvis Presley.
But since the product is stuff our body wants to get rid of, and we are not dogs, we’ve evolved to find it objectionable, and want it far away from us. So instead of letting everything dribble onto us all day long, which works great for vultures, we store it in a handy bag until we can find a likely place and time to dump it. An internal bag, ideally, but if that doesn’t work out we will totally get a surgeon to hang one outside the body.
I had a little problem in my fifties wherein nothing was wrong with my bladder per se, except that fibroids were lounging against it like fat men on a cheap air mattress. Since those went away (I’m told they’re still there, but have lost weight) I’ve been pretty sound. The weird thing though is I can be out for a good long walk—miles and miles—without any sense that I needed to pee, or at least needed to pee right then, and then I come home and meander toward the bathroom and suddenly my Toilet Proximity Alarm goes off and it’s all Whoop! Whoop! Batten down the hatches! and I’d better have all the buttons and zippers figured out before I get in there or there’ll be hell to spray.
I don’t understand it. The entire previous hour there had been no urgency at all.
So the last time that happened—and as I sat there pondering my close call—I got to wondering. Do sea creatures have to pee or does water just go in and out of them without making a big production out of it?
What? What do you think about when you’re peeing? Anyway I decided to find out. Now, your average person who wanted to know about urination among the pelagic set and was on the toilet at the time would probably whip out her phone (which is now somewhere around her ankles), but I do not take my phone into the bathroom, thank you very much. Not because I am a paragon of hygiene, which I am not. I just don’t take it anywhere. Most of the time I don’t even know where it is.
But, in a minor miracle, I actually remembered to look my question up on my laptop after I got done in the bathroom. Forgot to replenish the toilet paper roll, though. And I can’t find my phone.
To be continued.
[Silvia Conte, are you reading this? I can’t answer your email because your address “doesn’t exist.”]
Yup, Toilet Proximity Alarm… for this very reason, the route from our front door to the bathroom is less cluttered than a fire escape on safety inspection day. Unless our cat has other ideas. Technically, her litter tray is closer, but let’s not go there.
LET’S NOT GO THERE. Graeme will show you where to go.
The algorithms that will show up depending upon content of what we’re Writing about can be interesting. I didn’t know we were supposed to Think when we’re on the Throne… I guess I’ve been doing it all Wrong???
I mean, you’ve got time.
My friend Barb is a germaphobe. Also apparently is part camel. She does NOT use public restrooms and can hold it until she’s home. I’ve told her if I had to only pee at home, I’d be housebound my entire life.
I like to go garage saling, and there are damn few public restrooms around. But I know them all. I even take note of any ongoing construction work being done, as they have porta-potties. Also copses of trees in residential areas. I’m not shy.
On several occasions, I have left someplace close to home, and either just peed, or didn’t have to. I still didn’t have to as I drove home. Halfway home, I’d feel that I had to… but not badly. The closer I get to my door, though, the worse I have to go. By the time I unlock the door, and run to the bathroom, partially undressing as I go, I’m trying my best to control the urge. But as soon as my brain registers the proximity of the toilet, it tells my bladder — behind my back– and my bladder is like, close is good enough. And it starts. And once it starts it’s like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. No can do. So I have to change my pants — which started out clean, so that really pisses me off, so to speak.
Once, I couldn’t even make it to the back door. I jumped out of my car in the driveway, and slunk under my holly tree to gush. Fortunately, I had the foresight to grab tissue from my car and bring it with me. (Holly leaves do NOT make good wipes.)
Hi Mimi!
I also have spots mapped out where I can run and pee.
When I used to work for Rutgers I had an hour or longer commute and quite often found myself needing to stop. Fortunately a good chunk of my commute was through a rural part of NJ. Or at least I thought it was rural.
Turned out one of my favorite spots was between trees bordering a golf course. I never saw golfers when I was making use of the trees, but they must have had security cameras. One day I pulled over and an extra high guard rail had been installed between me and the trees.
Now that I’m commuting to Trenton I’ve had to seek new spots. Again a lot of the route is through rural NJ, but there’s not a lot of good cover. I was complaining to Andy about this and he asked me why I didn’t use the restroom facilities at the local park. Now I do and it is a wonderfully clean and warm facility.
I started out delivering mail in a very tony neighborhood and once was walking with a West Hills Matron who asked me what I do out there when I have to pee. I had a favorite rhododendron, or I knocked on someone’s door. She just did a wide stance and let ‘er go. Long skirt, no underpants. Matron, I tell you.
That’s basically my garage-saling uniform in the summer: dress or skirt. Commando. Tissues are always in the little tray on the console in my car. And NEVER hydrate when I’m out on the road.
These days I limit how much I drink before leaving the house for a long drive. Haven’t been to a movie theatre since before Covid. Not drinking for hours before a movie is headache territory.
I loved Wicked. But I saw it streaming on my computer. I could pause whenever I needed to pee or whenever I needed a drink. (Something I can’t do in a theater.) Watched Hamilton the same way. I may have to wait a bit for the Wicked sequel, but it’s better than missing part of the movie and paying a LOT more to do so. I haven’t been to a theater in a very long time. I so much prefer seeing a movie in the comfort of my own home, whether it be on a DVD or on streaming. I don’t need a big screen and I don’t mind waiting a year or so to see it.
My last outing to a movie theater was a nightmare. I took Dave in 2023 and he was super tanked up on Lorazepam because it was a very bad day for him. The things that happened. Lordy. Haven’t been back since.
I have read about Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. I remember it all, as I have good reading RETENTION. I read it in small bits but with great FREQUENCY, and with some URGENCY. I think that covers it…
Well if it doesn’t cover it, you’ll have to get something else to cover it.
I went to a bladder therapist—tmi. Anyway, it’s a thing, that overwhelming urge upon arriving home. She said some acronym which was, “stop, breathe, squeeze, etc.” it kinda works if you remember the acronym, and then its warm and wet down there.
It wasn’t TMI to begin with but then it ended that way…
There’s the proximity to a toilet thing and then there’s proximity to the morning alarm and the getting out of bed thing.
Most mornings I wake up long before the alarm goes off with a vague feeling that the waterworks need tending. But if I make the trip to the bathroom, the chances of me getting back to bed are slim.
Things usually get going when I check the time on the alarm clock. Trundle out to the kitchen for the morning meds and enroute the vague feelings become definite. It’s like the act of becoming vertical pushes everything down further.
So there’s a rapid collection and ingestion of meds followed by a speedy exit to the plumbing. Of course the kitchen and the bathroom are at opposite ends of the house and in between is an obstacle course of trip hazards. I’m very mindful of that since tripping back at Christmas and whacking my head on the way to the floor.
My dad combated the inconvenient urge by carrying a pee bottle in the car. I was offered it when he passed, but I wasn’t ready to commit to that. And there was the sterility thing and the poop factor because these days it seems like I can’t do one without t’other.
Which brings me to mull over what’s the difference between Substack and WordPress. It’s not the same group of people and they don’t comment like over here. I think part of the problem is there’s a Like button and a notification that a new comment has dropped. Those would seem like good things, but the Like button seems to absolve people of the need to actually say something.
I don’t like Like buttons. It seems to be basically a way of saying to the poster that you read something without feeling the need to comment. For me, the comments are just as important as the original post. If I happen to have nothing to say on some matter, I just don’t comment. If I do have something to say I just yak away….
You provide very thoughtful yakage.
I’m just going to say it–one of these days they will be the same people on Substack (plus new people) because this site will cease to be filled up. And it’s going to be because of tech problems on this site. I think the beloved comment section here took time to develop relationships and that will occur elsewhere too. My experience with the like button and my own use of it is that I tend to use it as a thumbs-up when I don’t otherwise have a comment, but it would never stop me from commenting. So if they’re like me, people use a like button as an extra thing, not a replacement.
The other thing is that Substack does give me a much better chance of increasing my audience, and that’s important to me. It’s cozier over here because we have a core group of fabulous commenters and maybe that experience would be diluted on a more-visited site–but maybe not!
If you don’t have to get up several times a night (I do), you’re doing VERY well.
Until last year, I could honestly say I never got up in the night to pee. Never. But last year I started to make a trip every other night or so. Lately it’s gone back to being unnecessary. I have no idea what my body is doing but it changes its mind a lot.
I think it’s a mostly male thing. Years ago my urologist told me my prostate was VERY much enlarged. I don’t know dimensions, but I pictured something the size of a baseball. She gave me two drugs and told me that if I didn’t take them daily, by the time I reached 75 my bladder would become completely rigid from the constant effort of trying to empty and I’d be incontinent. So I take them. Seems to be working, but there’s that up every couple of hours thing…