I’ve noticed something as I’ve gotten older. Well, yeah, there are a whole lot of somethings I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older. I can’t see as well. I can’t hear as well. I can’t remember stuff anymore. And my body creaks a whole lot more. But, I mean, besides all that.
What I’ve noticed is that I don’t like to be too far away from a restroom at any given time. I may not even have to go, but when I can’t go, I seem to develop the urge. Weird.
Put me in the OSU football stadium to watch the Buckeyes and the first thing I want to do after I’ve climbed all those cement steps is to head back down them so I can use the ladies room.
Get me on a plane and settled in my seat with my seatbelt securely fastened across my lap – and I immediately wonder if I should make a quick run to the loo before the flight takes off.
Now, you should know that I don’t actually GO to the bathroom once I arrive in my stadium or airplane seat. I just think I probably need to – even if I don’t.
I’ve also noticed that my driving habits have changed. I used to be able to drive for a minimum of 4.75 hours before a potty break was required. Nowadays, I can’t even make it to my parents’ home in Alliance – which is about a 2 hour and 20 minute drive – without making a pit stop along the way.
Sometimes getting older ain’t all that much fun is it?
So today was definitely a challenge for me. See, I didn’t have easy access to a bathroom while I was at work – and I felt like I had to go. All. Day. Long.
We had a couple of little old Italian masons in our German Village office all day repairing the brick wall that is located in the room next to my office. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a brick wall repaired, but red brick dust flies everywhere! We had plastic sheeting taped up all over the place to try to keep the dust to a minimum. And the door to my office was closed all day. Which meant I was practically hermetically sealed inside…and there are no, uh, “facilities” inside my office either.
I stopped drinking water at 8:35AM, which was hard to do because I normally drink water all day long to get in my requisite 8 glasses a day. Yep, I’m a veritable H20 drinking machine while at work.
So all morning I wanted to emerge from my cave to hit the john, even though I hadn’t had a drop to drink and was probably even slightly dehydrated. The thought of a powder room break crossed my mind approximately once every 45 seconds. This, as you can imagine, made it difficult to concentrate on any actual work.
Lunchtime was a blessing and I figured I would just spend the entire hour in the WC. Except…ewwww. So I didn’t, of course.
Normally at lunchtime, I suck down a whole can of Diet Dr. Pepper or another glass of water, but today I took a few miniscule sips from my water bottle fearing the need would hit me just as the afternoon brick repair session began.
This is all probably payback, you know. When I was younger and had the constitution of a, well, a younger person, I didn’t need to go to the restroom as often. But I had friends whose bladders must be the size of a teaspoon. Not only that, but they’d had children, which in female language apparently means they have to use the latrine infinitely more times as often as the rest of us. Like every 60 seconds.
One time a girlfriend and I drove to Cape Cod to spend a week at the beach. I’d made the drive a number of times previously, so I knew how long the trip should take given the usual potty breaks, which were timed with gasoline fill-ups to minimize stops. Ha. Little did I know that we’d have to stop every hour on the hour so she could make a pit stop. Just as we’d get a good driving rhythm going, she’d tell me she needed to stop. Arrrgghh! I thought we’d NEVER get there!
If she’d been a guy, I would’ve handed her a Big Gulp cup. But, nooooo. Couldn’t do that.
Sigh. You know what they say about paybacks, right? So I guess I should apologize to my friend for my superior attitude back then. Maybe I should hope that I get older quick. That way, I won’t remember all the things I used to give people a hard time about, and then won’t have to apologize. Or at least won’t remember that I should!
By the way…you ever notice how many euphemisms there are for “bathroom”?
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