Yup-pee

Ah well, I've avoided writing about this because it's not something you necessarily want to write about. But I figured almost everyone has been confronted with this situation, probably a lot of times in their lives - the urge to pee and with no available loo around. It happens in the most inconvenient of situations of course... long drives, longer journeys, mehendi (henna tattoo) on your hands, you name it... And once you find that elusive loo after what felt like your bladder might burst, the literal relief is probably the most palpable form of relief that one can feel. It's like all your tensions ease away (other than the literal tension of the bladder muscles loosening up). Back in India it never happened... maybe because I was subconsciously aware that the public latrines were best avoided. And ever notice how when you have to pee, that's like the top-most thing on your mind? You can't stop thinking about the fact that you have to go. Like all the other times when you don't, you are not even remotely thinking about the loo or anything in it's whereabouts. I can't remember the number of times that I have literally calculated the minutes to the nearest usable loo in such situations and coaxed myself that yes, I can make it and I won't pee in my pants. But gosh.. once or twice I didn't think I'd make it. I remember once when I had to return from renting a car here in Paris, I couldn't find parking near the house (of course you've read my woes on parking. You haven't??? Here you go!) and I'd had like 3 million gallons of water before going to pick up the car (I neither anticipated wanting to pee nor the lack of availability of parking - one of my rookie mistakes). And it was pure hell. I finally found parking about 2km away... figured I couldn't hold back from peeing all the way back home... almost considered diving into a café for a fake cup of coffee while really all I wanted to do was to use the toilet... but then reconsidered the option for having to fake niceties, looking at the menu, ordering, drinking more fluid and then going to pee. Instead I decided to keep up the momentum and semi-sprinted back home... only to discover that someone was moving out/in from/to our apartment.. bah, who cares? My apartment's on the ground floor and all I needed was half a foot of clearance to squeeze in, find my door and hop to the bathroom. It wasn't to be. For a frustrating 10 minutes, a huge cabinet blocked my door as the woman in charge apologized profusely and I tried to be as gracious as one can be in the situation... but looked nothing like it, while crossing and uncrossing my feet, making impatient sniffs and finally bolting through the door as if something was on fire. Something was. And two minutes later, I was lighter and relieved. I vowed never to do this to myself ever again.. to use the loo as liberally as required, go even if I didn't have to where there was a clean one available... blah blah. Needless to say, I haven't succeeded and neither was that my last time.