Recollection

My parents said to me, “There’s no way to get to a bathroom. So if you really have to pee, just go in your pants.” (Actually, knowing my parents they probably didn’t use the word pee. So insert some euphemism there so we don’t use such offensive language like “pee.” My guess is “urinate.”) I don’t even remember exactly where we were, but there were a ton of people. I think the Rose Parade in Pasadena. My exact age I don’t recall, but I was at the age where my parents might have said to me, “There’s no way to get to a bathroom. So if you really have to pee, just go in your pants.” My little brother was that age also. (For the math people you can consider his age: x-1).

Now, more than 25 years later, I question their reasoning. When would you have ever tell a young boy that he should just pee in his pants? And why would you say that to two boys that at the time weren’t even thinking about going to the bathroom? Couldn’t you just wait until one them said, “I need to go potty,” and pull out a cup to throw away later. I just can’t imagine sitting there with piss-filled pants being an enjoyable situation for a young child. To be honest, I can’t imagine the whole rose parade experience being an enjoyable situation for a young child.

How did we make that choice? I’m pretty sure they didn’t ask me at the time. “Kevin, do you want to go to the parade with hundreds of thousands of other spectators to witness first hand some of the most amazing floats every assembled, or would you rather go outside and dig a hole with a stick?” Even now, I’m not sure which I would choose.

I wonder if this is my earliest memory. I also question why I woke up this morning recalling this story. I even hear the tone of my mom’s voice telling me I can piss my pants. Exasperated. She probably couldn’t find anything to be stressed about so she looked around until she realized the crowd was too thick for us to navigate through to get to a bathroom. I’m sure that discomfort brought her some comfort. But maybe next time she could think of the pee in a cup idea.

Eventually I had to urinate. That does happen to all of us eventually. Like a good boy I remembered what my mother told me. So I just pissed my pants. And everyone got all mad at me. I didn’t understand my pee in your pants direction was only relevant for a specific period of time. My dad scooped me up and rushed me to a nearby bathroom and cleaned me up. A bathroom. Damn. I could have just gone in here.