Urinal
by Tricia Sutton
We piled into
Daddy's Ford Explorer for our family ski trip to
Heavenly Valley. Daddy had a perverse tendency to
disrupt otherwise uneventful car travels. Usually
bladder related.
Daddy had to
make a pit stop. A fresh blanket of snow made it
difficult find a restroom-friendly establishment.
He obeys all traffic laws to the letter unless it
involves his bladder. “Slow down Morris; try
thinking of the desert."
He shot Mama a
glance that, momentarily, wasn’t nice. But
his anger at her was always fleeting, so he
resumed his search. It was cold out, but he was
sweating, his concentration had taken a desperate
quality. The deadline for finding a bathroom
expired. His aim then was to find a privacy
screen. Spotting a urinal—a mirage,
likely—he abruptly stomped the gas pedal
then barreled like a cannonball straight for a
snow bank. Upon our arrival, four seconds later,
he slammed the brakes, which caused the
Ford’s chassis to vibrate then pitch into a
three-hundred-sixty degree spin before coming to
a halt, nose in to the wall of snow.
He bounded out
of the Ford, running and doing the jig, then
darted behind the snow bank as we all sat there
dismayed at his umpteenth display of bladder
dysfunction. He scurried back a few minutes later,
red-faced, which I mistook for the wealth of
shame he imparts upon us. He ducked in the
car and drove about a block, turned up a
residential street, and stopped.
Mama never
took her evil eye off Daddy. With jaws clinched,
she said each word slowly. “What did you do,
Morris?” He fixated on the rear-view mirror,
too distracted in his paranoia to answer.
“Morris!”
“Oh, uh,
I…” His body shook, which implied a
bellowing laugh to follow. Sure enough, he roared,
and in the car at that moment, we all laughed at
no-one-knows-what, except Mama. My brothers
gyrated, we howled, my sister finally needed air
and had to get out, all for … No-One-Knows-What.
Mama’s
face never flinched; she bored her eyes into
Daddy, and with a steady hypnotic voice said,
“I don’t know what you did,
but I can tell you what I do know … I know
it ain’t funny, and if you think we’re
going to make it to our thirtieth with that kind
of behavior then think again.”
“Why Reba,
it’s never kind to bully me, especially when
you don’t know what occurred.”
"Then get
your thrill and humor us." She was tapping
her foot. "Go on, get it over with; have
your fun.”
“It was
nothing really," he began, head down to
dramatize his sorrow. "But I already had my
pants half-near off when I shot around the snow
bank, faced the wall, and let the dam break. When
I bent down to pull up my pants …" (we
had to wait an additional twenty minutes of his
ear-splitting laughter before he could resume)
"… I saw a whole store of folks gawking
at me. Apparently, I chose a storefront to take a
leak. I made a bad decision for which I am truly
sorry."
"Shut Up."
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