Tragedy
Everyone has these nights in their life. They just partied too hard, got too drunk, and sent too many drunken text messages. Unfortunately (maybe fortunately), I have had more nights like this than your average young woman… or two average young women combined. I was out celebrating the fact that it was the Monday of a long three day weekend at a real dive bar. Half the group I was partying with had fake ID’s and no idea what to do in a bar. I think two of them even came in with Happy Meals.
The bar must have been excited it was the end of the weekend too because they were having a special… $5 pitchers of PBR. Umm... Did someone say liquid gold for $5 a pitcher?! Halleluiah! I believe I have previously emphasized my affinity for drinking out of pitchers and this was no exception. I literally drank as much as I could. I wasn’t spending much money and loved the economic efficiency of this.
I was having so much fun getting go so drunk, that I skipped going to the bathroom. Take a break from my peewee football friends for a trip to the ladies room? No way. I was there to party. And party we did. We drank until the staff of the bar turned all the lights on and was yelling at us to get out of the bar. They were pissed at us and totally onto the fake ID’s. While they were telling me to get out, I specifically remember having a pitcher in hand, up to my mouth, chugging, and looking at the bartender as he is telling me to put it down and get out. I somehow convinced myself that he was just trying to take my beer just to be mean and I needed to finish it before he could get to it. So I really opened the throat and chugged what was left as fast as I could.
Finally my posse and I leave the bar. There is a crappy pizza shop a few blocks away that has a walk up window. Obviously, this was out next destination. But on the walk to the pizza-window I realize I have to use the restroom. And it really hit me. This wasn’t a “I can hold this for a while” pee; this was a, “I NEED TO GET TO THE BATHROOM SOON OR THIS IS GOING TO GET REALLY UGLY” kind of pee. I try to regroup. “You are a grown up Lady Tata. Pull yourself together,” I reassured myself. “Grown ups don’t have to rush to the bathroom like this.” I convinced myself to hold it until we got to the pizza place. The first sign I see when I step up to the window reads, “No public restroom.” Oh shit. I ask, beg, and plead. I tell the nice men working at the window that I am not just “the public.” I am with a large group of people all buying pizza (while I can’t fathom of the fact of anything entering my body). I am sure that I was very rude when I reminded them that this was a restaurant and they should have restroom available to the their customers. They not so politely reminded me that they were not a “restaurant” and they were only a “pizza window.” I didn’t have many options here.
Most of the group I was with lived in one house and we had to pass their house in order for me to walk to mine. In the walk to pass their house and drop them off, I somehow convince myself that I don’t have to go. Lady Tata had succeeded in convincing herself that she was in fact an adult. So when all the girls asked me if I wanted to come in and use the bathroom, I declined. It was only another several blocks to my house. It was nothing Lady Tata couldn’t handle.
So here I am, walking alone in the U District, down frat row, and it hits me again. Oh my god. Shit. What am I going to do? I seriously have to pee so bad. I resorted to holding myself and waddling so that my thighs were held together. I couldn’t lose it. I then I laughed at myself. UH OH. I felt that I had peed a little bit. Pretty much just enough to feel some moisture is my pants. This made me laugh again. And I just couldn’t hold it. I completely peed. Two, maybe three, whole pitchers of what was previously PBR liquid gold. I tried to pull my pants down as fast as I could and managed to get them down just in time to pee a little bit on the back of my pants. And then I had to pull them back up for the rest of the walk home. Gross. And I still had a few blocks to go, but it was dark and I was in jeans, so I was able to laugh to myself a little bit and finish the walk home. I was much more relieved than disgusted or embarrassed. I finally get to my house, use the bathroom one more time (just to be safe), strip off my clothes, and hop into bed.
I wake up the next morning for class and I have gotten myself in trouble again. I am running really late for class. My homework must be turned in within the first fifteen minutes of class. I calculate that if I leave my place in the next ten minutes, I would just make it in time. I grab the first outfit I can find on the floor and rush to class – about a twenty-minute light jog. I finally get there and got my work turned in on time… another relief.
Studies show that they average college aged person has an attention span of about 55 minutes. This is a two-hour class. I have a headache, I want to be in bed, and I need some greasy food. And at the 55 minute-marker of class I smell it. What could that possibly be? Road kill? Did someone burn their hair? I look around at my classmates. It is prime economics-major meat. Most of these people take a few showers a week. Hygiene is not on their list of concerns and frequently they have stained clothes and should’ve been washed yesterday hair. I immediately blame it on the large young man next to me. He has some nasty pants on that I know he wears five days a week, a pretty bad skin condition on his face, and the signature greasy hair. This guy has got to be the one who stinks. I scoot my chair as far away as I can from him. Ugh. All of a sudden the large guy doesn’t seem so bad because this skinny girl next to be has got to be the one with the odor. I don’t care if her notes are color-coded, she must have eaten something really bad yesterday that is now leaking out of her pours and about to poison the whole class. I scoot close the large zero-hygiene nerd again. All of the pieces come together in this instant. I am wearing the pants I wore last night and I am the one poisoning the class. I am only 56 minutes into class and disgusted with myself. The paranoia sets in and I imagine how the skinny and fast non-smellers felt next to me. They were the ones dreading my scooting close to them this whole time!
Because of the way I had apparently gracefully my jeans over my desk chair, they were able to completely dry. There was zero moisture. But the smell was awful. I had to sit through class and then was able to go home and change my pants, go back to campus, and to continue on with my day.
What did I learn from this? Probably nothing. Lady Tata can’t even tell herself what to do.
