Thoughts I Think and then Write Down

When I was little, my parents taught me never to interrupt adults while they’re talking. This is all well and good, unless you’re a highly anxious child who takes everything as literally as possible.

One time, when I was in 3^rd grade, I had to go to the bathroom during PE. I went to the coach to ask permission but she was talking with another coach. So I waited patiently.

She didn’t seem to notice me. I think I had the power of invisibility when I was little and just didn’t know it—had I known, I could have harnessed it and used it to sneak away to pee without even NEEDING permission.

After a few minutes, I started to feel more pressure in my bladder.

Neither of the coaches appeared to have noticed me yet.

At this point, no one else existed on any real, immediate level; the coaches and I were in our own little bubble of space and time, to go through this experience together.

The following action might have caused me embarrassment, with all my peers around. But because of the bubble, I didn’t notice them.

So I held myself.

Then I bounced around a little, both as a way to keep my bladder distracted from being so full and also to garner some attention.

It didn’t work.

But once I’d started the movement, I couldn’t stop it, because now my bladder was used to the movement; if the movement stopped, there would be no distraction for my bladder and it would find the discomfort too painful to withstand.

So I kept moving.

Finally I had the good sense to say, “Excuse me, Coach?”

But, without even looking at me, she said, “Just a minute,” and kept telling some story to the other coach.

I waited as patiently as an eight-year-old with a full bladder can possibly wait. I was more—much more—patient, in fact.

But eventually, my body was telling me it had reached critical status.

So I found a pause in their conversation and knew I had to strike while the iron was getting ready to be peed on.

Me: “Excuse me, Coach?”

Coach: “Shh—Don’t interrupt grownups when they’re talking”

Me: “But”—

Coach: “Hush! Or I’ll make you sit in Time Out.”

At this point, I was willing to risk getting punished if it meant I could sneak off to the bathroom. I ran through the school layout in my head. What is the proximity of the Time Out zone to the closest bathroom? Not close enough to do me any good and therefore not worth getting in trouble over (my worst fear in grade school).

So I didn’t say anything else, and waited, hoping, praying that she would finish her story soon and let me ask my question.

But she didn’t.

And I didn’t get to.

So right there, while standing next to her…

In broad daylight, with my classmates all around, playing games with their stupid empty bladders.

The cherry on top was that when the teacher noticed this, instead of sympathy or an apology for not listening to my question, I got scolded. I’m not sure what her reasoning was as to how this was the eight-year-old’s fault, as opposed to the 30-something-year-old but oh well. I was sent (as if for punishment) to the office. I remember that walk of shame vividly. The breezeway, inside the building, passing the bathroom I never got to use, down the hall, into the main lobby, past the cafeteria and into the office, all the while hoping no one saw me, Pee-Girl.

In the office, the front desk lady looked at me with what I perceived at the time to be an expression of displeasure and disgust.

She quickly directed me to the nurse, who pulled out a box of lost-and-found clothing, which she used for emergencies just like this.

The upside was the nurse (who was always very nice to me) let me pick out whichever pants I wanted to wear (though the only that would fit were a pair of boy’s denim shorts) while she told me that I shared my last name with the great and famous Dallas Cowboy, Michael Irvin. I said I know because my dad told me that because he loves the Cowboys. She then said Michael Irvin was her nephew and told me the story of how he got picked by the Cowboys and some other boring stuff I don’t remember but at the time was very excited to relay to my father.

I remember those denim shorts too. They were snug and had that annoying denim-y texture that gave me the heebie jeebies when I touched it.

I also remember feeling doubly weird about the fact that I had no underwear on, because of course, I’d soaked them in my urine. And the feeling of my bare skin against the denim shorts felt so wrong, especially knowing they belonged to someone else

who was also a boy.

I wondered under what circumstances these items of clothing came to be in the lost-and-found? A coat I could understand—a belt, maybe. But bottoms and tops? Looking back on it, I realize that they probably belonged to kids who, like I, had peed on themselves and needed new ones. I suppose sometimes they forgot to take home their soiled clothes. I can only hope that the nurse or somebody thought to wash those things before just passing them on to another kid to wear. One would think so. But, this was, after all, the early nineties, before people were as adherent to hygiene practices as they are today, so I can’t be sure.

But here’s the kicker and why I’m pretty sure God has an insane and also slightly cruel sense of humor and often enjoys including me in the punch lines of these jokes.

The outfit I wore to school that day was one of my favorites. To go along with the summery, watermelon design on the shirt, my bottoms…well, they were…