tsunami

Another school story...

I’m ten yrs old, in grade 6. I stay after school one day to finish painting a poster I’d started in art class. I have to pee, but I don’t want to walk all the way down the long hallway and then come back again. Any minute now I’ll be done with this poster, and then I’ll be able to just stop by the washroom on my way out of the school.

I work feverishly, eventually doing the full-fledged wee-wee dance as I put the finishing touches on my poster. I slap the final bits of paint on, grab the poster, and dash out of the classroom.

I’ve left it rather closer than I intended – my bladder feels like a basketball, and I begin to question whether I’m actually going to make it to the bathroom. I break into a run.
I slide around the corner into the washroom and skid to a stop in front of the urinal. I have made it. Hoorah.

I’m not sure if this next part will make sense to everyone, but here it is: for guys at least, there’s a tiny delay from the time when you tell your bladder it’s okay to let go until the little water stream actually makes it to the freedom of the outside world. So you can actually relax just a fraction of a second before you’re technically ready to fire, as it were. We do this operation five or six times a day, so we eventually get pretty good at the whole timing thing. We’re a precision-tooled machine. So to speak.

So anyway, we left our hero standing before the urinal, finally able to relax and let go. Which he does, with a heartfelt sigh of relief. But then, disaster strikes. At the crucial moment – during that fraction of a second between Go and Fire – his equipment catches on a fold of his underwear, and he’s unable get into the ready position. The Mother of All Urinations has begun, and little charley is out of position.

I eventually get things set right, but not before sending about a gallon down my right leg. To make things worse, I’m wearing light blue slacks (it was the 70’s okay?) -- the dark river down my leg is unmistakable, and probably visible from space.

The only thing going for me is that it’s late, and there’s virtually no one still at school other than a few teachers.

I stuff my now-totally-irrelevant poster into the trash can. I glance up and down the hallway, then sneak down the stairs to the first floor. I do a kind of cops-clearing-the-house thing around each doorway as I make my way out of the school.

Eventually I’m outside. I run across a busy 4-lane road rather than take the overpass, for fear of meeting someone coming the other way. I sneak thru back alleys and hide behind trees on my way home.

My best friend Ryan happens to be coming home late from school also, and he calls to me to wait up. I run away, down side streets, around corners. I flatten myself behind some bushes in someone’s yard, hoping I’ve lost him. I look up to see a woman staring at me from behind her kitchen window, wondering why a strange 10-yr-old is lying on her lawn. I pretend to be out of breath (Just resting here on these pine-cones, ma’am. Nothing to worry about.)

Ryan does not follow me. I find my way to the alley behind our house and sneak in the back door. I get cleaned up and sneak my pants into the laundry. All is well.

The next day a teacher pulls me aside. “I saw you going home last night,” she says.
My heart sinks. My secret is out. The whole school will know.
But it turns out she just wants to lecture me about running through the traffic instead of using the overpass. I listen attentively, and nod vigorously when she’s done. Yes indeed, Mrs.Kaiser. You are so right. I will never do that again. I don’t know what I was thinking. I will never do that again.
And I didn't.