Saturday, July 18, 2009

A Urine Sample

One of the joys of being male is the ability to pass urine in a variety of  situations, some of which are self-amusing, enjoyable, or challenging.
Of course, in the beginning,  a very young boy may wet the bed, or wet his pants when excited.   When I was in First Grade, I left a puddle under my chair in the classroom.  I remember looking back at it as I left the room at the end of class and wondering if it would be there when I returned the next morning.  It wasn't.
Then one advances into real boyhood and the exercise of one's imagination.  I peed from rooftops, either off the gable letting urine fall to earth or onto the sloping roof itself to watch the slow trickle of pee over the asphalt shingles drip into the rain gutter.
I peed from a tree house, and from many other trees I had climbed.  I have peed in pools, ponds, streams and lakes. Off docks.  Out of boats.  Behind trees, and shrubs, and in alleys;  against the wheels of a car (with a door open to conceal my act).  I have pissed in the manure drop of a cow barn and down woodchuck holes.  I have shot flies, mosquitoes, salamanders and other assorted wildlife with a forceful yellow stream. I have peed in bottles, cans, boxes, plastic bags, ditches, catch basins, french drains, and gutters.  I tried to see how far I could send it and how wide a sweep I could make of the stream.  It was, as Tony the Tiger would say,  Gr-r-r-eaat!
As a man I have been less silly but there were circumstances which accounted for some odd experiences.   Flying from Seoul, Korea to the island of Paengnyongdo I needed to relieve myself and was directed to a relief tube in the side of the fuselage.  "Don't aim for it" a crewman told me, "put it in there so you don't miss."  The urine went into the atmosphere to evaporate.  Very efficient! 
On the island itself, our camp had a 2 inch diameter  iron pipe sticking out of the ground at a 45 degree angle.  Again, this was a relief tube for urinating.  Packed yellow snow around the base of the pipe was confirmed by the footprints in the snow coming from all angles in the camp.
Returning to the states on the troop ship USS Breckinridge, we had gang toilets but the urinals were not stalls or wall hung fixtures.  Instead they were twenty foot long metal troughs for the men to use standing side by side.
I suppose that all these methods are gone now that we have a coed military.
Today of course my life is a different story.  I don't stream;  I dribble.  And I am afraid of heights and I am too old to serve my country again.  C'est la pee!
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