Sunday, September 7, 2008

If only I could pee standing up...

You know what's worse than having to pee really bad but not being able to go to the restroom...?

Being in line behind 40 plus women.

Relief is in sight, yet so impossibly far away.

Plus, it's intermission, so you only have 15 minutes or less to reach nirvana.

This is the situation that my mother and I found ourselves in on our recent trip to NYC. We were at a beautiful, old, historic, famous theater, The Gershwin, seeing the most amazing show, Wicked.

I had had two vodka cranberries within the previous 2 hours (one before the show, and a big gulp size one during the show... vodka is very low in calories... and cranberry juice prevents urinary tract infections... except when you have to hold it all in you bladder for too long...).

We ran out of the theater as soon as the curtains closed, and ran right into a wall of faster women (seriously, how did they get there so fast?). So we thought that we would go downstairs to find another, less crowded bathroom.

Yeah... there isn't another bathroom downstairs. So we climbed back upstairs, and got in the huge line.

Meanwhile, men were just waltzing right into their bathroom and right out. A girl in front of us asked the usher if there was another bathroom, and then joked that maybe we should just go into the men's room.

The usher said that women do that all of the time.

My mother then took that as an invitation to get a pack of women to commandeer the men's room.

We stood outside in line, and had a nice young man check to make sure that the coast was clear. Meanwhile, the little ding-dong noise went off to tell us we had five minutes to return to our seats for the second half of the show.

Finally, the coast was clear... sort of. One poor guy got stuck in the middle of our line, and, like us, couldn't hold it. Maybe he was also a fan of the vodka-crans. He apologized, asked us to avert our eyes, and went for the furthest urinal.

The dude had to overcome some major stage-fright... peeing in front of 8 female strangers.

Bravo sir. Bravo.

Finally, it was my turn (only 3 stalls in the men's room...), and it was wonderful...

A little dirty... but wonderful.

The whole trip my grandmother was saying things like: When I was a little girl, I used to ride my bike here all the time. Or: When we were young, your grandfather and I would come here...

Now I can tell my grandkids: When I was young, I peed in the men's room of the Gershwin.

I highly recommend the musical, Wicked. I finished the book about 15 minutes before leaving for the show. Although the musical is based off of a novel, the two are really too different to be compared. The book was good, especially the second time... but singing makes everything better.


My cousin, David: So, life after college... it's not such a bed of roses, huh?
Me: No... not really... not yet.
David: Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first.
Me: Bad.
David: There are no roses.
Me: What's the good.
David: There are no roses.

PS: I know that the picture isn't anything funny, but I'm exhausted... and it's really hard to find an appropriate picture on the Internet that goes well with this story... don't try typing "need to pee" into Google images... trust me.