Urine Nation

Someone approached me the other day and caught me off guard with this: ‘I’ve been reading your blog.  You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?’

‘Huh,’ I replied, thinking that pretty much answered her question.

‘What I mean is I like your blog.  You can be pretty funny at times.  It seems like you can write about almost anything and make it sound humorous.’  I’m beginning to like this lady.

‘Yes, I guess it’s one of the few things I do pretty well,’ I replied rather sheepishly, thinking that two other things I do pretty well are solving math problems in my head and drinking vanilla milk shakes really, really fast.  Not that anyone could give a rat’s a** about either one. 

Then she threw down the gauntlet.  ‘I bet you can’t write something humorous about EVERYTHING,’ she said.  ‘Urinals, for example.  Let’s see you make THEM funny.’ 

‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said.  ‘If you allow me to embellish (white lies!) my story three times, I can write something about urinals that will make you laugh out loud.’

‘You’ve got a deal,’ she said, not realizing who she was messing with. 

So what you’re about to read is not only going to prove Ellen DeGeneres wrong; it’s also going to shed a new light on the concept of semi-public urination. 

First of all I want to put it out there that I have no problem using a urinal in a public restroom.  I know there are some men who prefer to lock themselves in a stall to achieve the same results they could get from using a urinal, but I’m not one of them.  I’ve always thought of men using stalls to urinate as having a variation of performance anxiety; perhaps even stage fright.  These men are also missing out on things; things like I’m about to tell you about now (right after I get back from the restroom because all this talk about urinals is making me have to pee). 

In the early 1970’s my best friend and I were HUGE Alice Cooper fans when we were in high school.  It’s not like we painted our eyes in black Alice Cooper makeup (excluding the two or three weeks immediately after seeing them perform in concert during our junior and senior years) or had a pet boa constrictor like Alice (that wouldn’t happen until we started college), but we love-love-LOVED his music.  One time my friend and I found out at which hotel in Jacksonville, Florida the Alice Cooper band was staying the night before a performance.  When we got there we found Alice Cooper in the flesh (literally, excluding his polka dotted pajama bottoms) playing cards by the pool with his bass player and Flo and Eddie (the second generation of The Turtles and Alice Cooper’s opening act).  We spent some time with the musicians, mostly talking and just the right amount of drinking.  With drinking comes the need to use the bathroom, so at some point I made my way to the restroom in the hotel lobby.  I hadn’t realized Dennis Dunaway, Alice Cooper’s bass player had followed me into the restroom and was using the urinal next to me, only he wasn’t using it to urinate.  He was using it to do something he absolutely needed to be using the stall for (no, not poo).  I pointed Dennis in the right direction (‘gee, thanks MANNNNNNNNNN…how did I get so WASTED???’) and went back for my friend and drove home (no choice, it was a school night).  It was the first (and only) time someone barfed on my shoe as well as the first time I saw someone vomit that didn’t make me vomit as well.  Also, many years Dennis wrote an autobiography and didn’t mention this particular incident and I thought if I reminded him about it—assuming he reads this, of course—he’ll include it in a future edition of his book, perhaps as an ‘exclusive.’         

In the early 1980’s my wife and I took a cruise to the Bahamas.  There was a celebrity guest on the ocean liner we were sailing on: Bert Convy, the charming and witty host of the game show Tattletales.  One day I was using one of the public urinals on the ship when I looked to my left and saw standing in front of the urinal next to me none other than Mr. Tattletales himself.  I looked at him and said ‘you’re Bert Convy!’ to which he replied, ‘you don’t say.’  (I told you he was charming and witty.)  I found his comment a little strange because Tom Kennedy was the host of a rival (and much more entertaining) game show by that very name: You Don’t Say.  I could tell Bert and I made an instant connection because seconds later we were washing our hands in adjacent sinks, not to mention sharing a mirror.  Strangely, I never saw him again during the entire cruise.  But I feel confident I made a lasting impression on him and I’m certain we would have been the best of friends had we stayed in touch over the years.        

In the winter of 2015 my wife and I made the drive to Athens, Georgia to watch our beloved Florida Gator basketball team take on the Georgia Bulldogs. CBS was on hand to televise the Saturday afternoon game, and once the game was over I stopped by one of the restrooms in the Coliseum to pay a visit before making the long drive home.  I stood at front of one of the urinals and I saw CBS announcer Clark Kellogg—hard to miss at 6’9” and 225+ pounds—out of the corner of my right eye.  I turned to my left and said to the gentleman in front of the adjacent urinal, ‘hey, that’s Clark Kellogg.’  Instantly I realized whom I was talking to: Former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley.  I asked him if he realized how much pain he caused me in the 1970’s (Georgia had a dominating run of nine wins and one loss in a 10-year period that stretched into the early ‘80’s).  His reply: ‘I get that a lot.’  ’38 to 20, b*tch,’ was the first thing that crossed me mind, a reference to the score of the most recent Florida-Georgia game, a resounding Gator victory.  It was also the first thing that came out of my mouth, because I have absolutely no filter when verbally engaging with anyone affiliated with the Evil Empire that is UGA.  Vince Dooley wasn’t going to intimidate me; besides he didn’t look nearly as menacing as I thought he would be without Herschel Walker standing by his side.  That, and the fact he was now 83 years old.

I’ve had some interesting encounters in public restrooms over the years.  Some I’m more than happy to discuss, like the three you just read about.

Others I simply refuse to talk about for reasons I’d just as soon forget.  Maybe those men with public restroom performance anxiety know more than they’re willing to share.