New Lows in Pottying

I did something this evening that may well be illegal and is certainly unseemly. Sometimes circumstance drives us to extremity.

A bit of background. O. and I took a trip up to the suburbs of our nearest Midwestern metropolis to celebrate Easter with my tight extended family this weekend, bringing along my cousin JD, who lives in my town and often travels with us to family gatherings. JD is fifteen, but a moderately serious case of cerebral palsy makes various of his motor, social, and cognitive skills more akin to those of a much younger kid. This includes bathroom skills. He’s been competent for quite awhile now, but his endurance and confidence in matters toilet-related are limited. O. is a recent arrival on the underpants-all-day scene, and as such his toilet needs are also relatively demanding. In other words, when either JD or O. says “I need to pee,” people listen.

The trip home this afternoon ended up being long and harrowing due to driving rain, intermittent thunderstorms, and continual breaking weather news apprising us of tornado watches and warnings in nearby counties. Between the necessity of driving sometimes as slow as 45 on a major interstate due to weather conditions and the bathroom needs of O, JD, and my coffee-fueled self, the two hour trip took three, and a nerve-wracking three for the sole driver.

When we pulled off the interstate, tired, hungry, and cranky, JD immediately announced “I need to pee!” I was heading toward a Walgreen’s about 300 yards away to pick up a box of must-have tampons (did I mention I’m on the rag?), but stopped a couple hundred yards early, pulled into a McDonald’s, and let JD run in to use the can. Okay, now on to the Walgreen’s. In addition to needing a change o’ tampon, I myself had to pee like the proverbial race horse, but O. was sleeping in his car seat and I figured I could wait through one errand and dropping JD off at his house. I ran in, locking all the doors and instructing JD not to open them for anyone under any circumstance, and accomplished a three-minute find-and-purchase tampon hit. When I came back out, O. had just woken up. “He needs to pee,” JD informed me. “I need to pee!” O. said. “Can it wait ‘til we get to JD’s house?” I asked hopefully. No, it could not. I thought of the trek into Walgreen’s with JD and O. in tow to ask if they had a bathroom we could please please use, the search for this bathroom, holding O. awkwardly on top of the big toilet with JD standing by waiting. Then I thought of O’s shiny red Baby Bjorn potty throne sitting two feet away in the trunk. I made my choice.

A minute later, O. was sitting on his red potty (which was perched on the back seat), pants and drawers around his ankles, peeing. We were in a dark, damp, mostly deserted parking lot on a major road, and the whole thing seemed unspeakably seamy at the same time it was utterly laughable. O. finished peeing, stood up while I pulled up his pants, and immediately burst into tears. Any number of (or combination of) things may have triggered this eruption, particularly at the end of our long, trying trip, but to me his tears rang out with accusation: Mama, that was fucking humiliating. I felt a pang of guilt, but much more I felt like sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. JD was clearly a bit shocked. “That’s not the best way to pee,” I said, bearer of wisdom to the next generation, “but it’s better than peeing in your pants.”

Then I dumped my son’s piss onto the Walgreen’s asphalt, clicked O. back into his car seat, chucked the potty in the trunk, and peeled out.