By now the Halloween pics have been up for a day, hopefully you can see them. It was a great deal of fun this year, and to top it off, I won the costume contest at the bar we went to. I am now the happy owner of a $75 gift certificate to a fine fine Bronx eating establishment. The evening started off a little dicey though. For the 2 of you that read this blog regularly, you might remember that I suffer a most horrendous malady. I have the bladder of a fetus. I'm not saying that my bladder is the size of a fetus, rather, if a fetus were to walk up to me and challenge me to a pee-holding contest, it would win, little web-fingered hands-down.
The plan for the evening was our usual for a night out in Manhattan. We met at someone's apartment to "preparty." Preparty simply means drink some at home before venturing into the land of the $8 pint of piss-warm Bud Light. Normally, I stick to a drink or two of hard alcohol at the preparty because it is usually at least a 30 min ride into Manhattan from school. Have you ever met a fetus that could hold its pee for 30 min? Me neither. However, I made a series of miscalculations that fateful Halloween night.
Firstly, my birthday was Sunday and on said occasion I had occasion to be given gifts by some dear gift-giving friends at school. These gifts each consisted of beer. These same generous friends were to be at the preparty, and what better way to show your appreciation of receiving such kindnesses than by sharing the beer? This was miscalculation #1. At the preparty I drank 3 beers and had one drink of vodka with Dr. Shock.
The next half of the plan was to take the express bus into Manhattan from school and hit the bar where our Halloween party was being held. The express bus makes 5 stops in Manhattan and 5 stops in The Bronx. Between these two boroughs it is non-stop. It usually takes about 30-45 min one-way. This bus crosses one of the zillions of bridges in the greater NYC area, The Triborough. So let's look at miscalculation #2: 3 beers + bridge bottleneck + Halloween traffic into Manhattan = bladder disaster. We waited at least an hour just to get through the toll booth.
As the bus got rolling again after the toll, I realized that I, too, would need to pay a toll before this trip was complete. Of course, denial and self-delusion took over and I made the attempt to hold out. Soon I noticed other members of our party acting out in urinary desperation: a lot of pee-pee dancing, nervous laughter and groans at every pothole, finally a first year girl caved in and used a water bottle while squatting between the bus seats in the back. As I mopped the flop-sweat from my brow, I glanced to my right to see another first year just finishing his vodka and Gatorade he brought along.
"Hey, let me borrow that Gatorade bottle!"
"Oh, sorry dude, I just finished it"
"Yeah, I know, I need the empty bottle, RIGHT. NOW."
"Dude, are you going to..."
"YES, NOW GIVE ME THE MOTHERFUCKER"
I am an expert at the rolling road urination into an empty bottle. I've done this many, many times. In fact, I've often had to perform this act while driving a vehicle. So getting every drop into a wide-mouth Gatorade bottle was a snap. Getting the screw top back onto the now urine filled bottle while wearing a giant douche bag costume, however, I am a little rusty at. The screw top trickled out of my fingers and went bouncy-bouncing up the aisle and under someone's seat.
Do you think any of my dear, generous friends were willing to help me out by locating the top for me? Of course not. I became the entertainment on this bus ride from hell: Giant douche bag and his urine balancing act on NYC public transportation. In hindsight, it was fortuitous that I was covered head to toe in plastic. I truly feel bad for the generous friends who did not enjoy such a protective coating.
