Pee Trek V: The Final Frontier (Bathrooms Echo... Loudly)

Throughout the history of me, I have at times been known for having almost zero ability to hold it.  

By "hold it", I mean, bladder control.  When I was younger I would constantly make Grandpa stop for bathroom breaks during car trips.  He probably appreciated me taking the heat for the bi-hourly stops so he could take advantage of my problem, but it certainly made drives longer than they needed to be.  There were times I was in such distress that I had to waddle to the gas station bathroom like my ankles were tied together.  

For my 21st birthday, someone gifted me a box of Depends, so yeah, back then everyone knew about my problem.  On a side note, for that year's New Years party, we convinced Darren to dress up like Baby New Year using the Depends.  I KNOW there is a picture of that somewhere... gotta find that one...

To top it off, I also had a shy bladder.  Any distractions and I'd seize up.  Damn that really hurts.  As I got older I figured out how to ration my liquids and can do better on trips now... most of the time.

But back in the day, it was a bad combination.   

The date was Saturday Jun 10, 1989.  How do I remember that so clearly (besides looking it up on imdb.com)?  Darren and I had a several year policy of seeing every new Star Trek movie on opening Friday, usually the noon show.  Star Trek V sucked, thus making it stick in my mind.  Well... it wasn't very good.  ANY Star Trek is better than no Star Trek.  But yeah... ugh.  

Anyway this premier for some reason we couldn't go Friday.  Who knows why anymore, it was probably stupid adult stuff.  So we planned for the first showing Saturday morning.  Problem was, I was in the middle of my Two Years Of Stupid (tm), where I was living with a girl (who shall remain nameless) and her 8 year old son in a one bedroom apartment.  About three months in I already knew I wasn't going to stay with her long term, but as I said above, I was stupid.  And trapped.  What can I say, she used me to escape her parent's house and I fell for it.

Anyway again, she had to work Saturday, so I was on child duty.  Off to the movie the three of us went, getting there early so we have the pick of seats.  (When D and I movie, we count the seats in the row and sit dead center.  Yup... 1,2,3,4,etc... all the way to the other side, while the other one stands close to the middle to make a quick decision on exact middle.  Still do to this day.)

We pile in with our snacks and drinks (cue ominous music...).  The boy (who will ALSO remain nameless) decides he wants to sit in the front row.  I tell him he can if he wants, and with the seating slope I can still keep an eye on him so there is no problem, plus now D and I can talk (plotting my escape from entrapment about a month later, probably) before the movie starts.  After a while the boy gets bored up in the front row by himself and comes back to talk, leaving his popcorn and snacks where he had planted himself.  After a few minutes I see someone, maybe mid-teens, silhouetted by the screen walk to the Boy's spot and look down at the left over goodies.  "Hey, you'd better get back there!" I tell him.  He scampers away.  I see him scoot over, say something to the shadow, and then sit down next to him.  They start talking.  Figuring he is some Star Trek nerd like us, the situation is fine and we settle back.  (Don't worry... I'm consciously keeping an eye on him!  He was my responsibility...!) 

The movie starts... I'm drinking my large soda.  As I said above... dumb.  By the time the movie gets to the climax, I'm really suffering.  I mean eyes-crossed, back of my throat gurgling, walk to the bathroom like my ankles are tied together suffering.  But I CAN"T LEAVE NOW BEFORE THE MOVIE IS OVER!!!  

The stinker ends none too soon, not only for my poor bladder but also for the fact that my love of Star Trek was being shaken by that piece of crap.  We stand up, or should I say, Darren stands, and I stagger, in utter agony.  He had to help pull me up.  Shuffling to the end of the row we wait for the Boy to make it through the crowd.  After what seemed like 37 hours of waiting, the back of the line gets to us at the middle of the theater.  Accompanying him is the young man, who was either autistic or with a mild case of Down Syndrome.  The Boy says "Rob!  Meet my new friend Steve*" (*Actual name lost to the years, and it doesn't matter what his name was for the purposes of the story...).  

Darren and I introduce ourselves and Steve says "ITS REALLY NICE TO MEET YOU!  <the Boy> WAS TELLING ME YOU DO THEATER!!  I LOVE SINGING.  DO YOU LIKE TO SING?  STAR TREK IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE!!!  DID YOU LIKE IT?   *I* LOVED IT!  (The line starts exiting the theater)  DO YOU LIVE NEARBY?  MY DAD IS GOING TO COME PICK ME UP!  (I'm pretty much crawling at this point)  WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MUSICAL?  I'VE NEVER SEEN A MUSICAL BEFORE BUT I BET IT'S FUN!!! (Oh god please kill me now...)  I GO TO SCHOOL.  MY FAVORITE CLASS IS MATH!  WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE CLASS?  (The Lobby!  Salvation!  Oh... not so fast...)

"Well", I say, barely able to speak from the intense stabbing of my bladder trying to explode out my belly button, "Thanks for keeping <Boy> company.  I'm going to stop in the bathroom.  Nice to meet you."

HEY, I'VE GOT TO GO TO THE BATHROOM ALSO!  GOOD IDEA!  I'LL GO WITH YOU.  I whimper.  Glancing at Darren I note he is almost crying trying to hold back the laughter while watching me suffering and letting me wallow in my misery, like any best friend would do.  So Steve and I head to the men's room.  

Of course there is a line... 

MY DAD SHOULD BE WAITING!  I CAN'T WAIT TO TELL HIM ABOUT THE MOVIE!  I'm surrounded by other dudes waiting while this really nice young man through no fault of his own is speaking very loudly.  I can't hold on to him for support, all I can do is focus on clamping every orifice in my body to try to prevent the pee going down my leg.  The line inches forward...

... into the bathroom, where Steve's loud voice now ECHOS through the room.  EVERYONE is staring at me as poor, oblivious, loud Steve keeps up his train of conversation.  "I HAVE ONE BROTHER AND ONE SISTER! (sister...sister...sister)".

We are waiting our turn for a urinal to open.  Why didn't I go to a stall?  I don't know... I wasn't thinking clearly with a flooded brain.  The only thought I had was "PLEASE let one open down the row... pleaseohpleaseohplease".  After a few moments (or hours, or eons.. I don't know anymore), a urinal opens.  I step forward, sweet relief just moments away...  until the one to my right opens up.

In slides Steve.  He unzips and turns his head to face me, just 24" inches away.  "YOUR SON IS A REALLY NICE KID!  I'M GLAD WE ALL MET!!! (met...met...met!)".  Now I KNOW every eye in the bathroom is focused on me and wondering what the hell is going on. 

And with that, everything completely locks up.  Steve is on my right yelling in my ear, my body is revolting and my shy bladder doodle is clamped down.  There is NO WAY I'm going to pee until Steve isn't standing there.  But behind me is a line of dudes waiting just as eagerly for the urinal as I was.  I do the only thing manly thing I can...

I pretend to shake it off, flush, and turn to the sink.  Yes, I washed my hands.  The sound of running water almost knocked me unconscious.  Of course Steve uses the sink RIGHT NEXT TO MINE, continuing to TALK.  He walks out, I waddle.  Darren is waiting and all three of us say our goodbyes.  As Steve turns away, I collapse onto Darren's arm and whisper "Get me back to the bathroom!"  

Fortunately it has cleared out.  I stand there for about three minutes because it take a while for everything to start working... and there was about 32 ounces of pepsi trying to escape.  

Darren laughed at me for a LONG time about this trip to the movies.  Maybe those Depends weren't such a bad idea after all.

A random pic from NYE 1996 that has nothing to do with the post.  Note the blowup doll in the background...

 

Sportsball! (16 years of friendship was a good run)

My apologies for the lack of posts the last two weeks... lets face it, there have been a lot more important things to pay attention to in the real world.  That being said, I am SURE that you all are waiting BREATHLESSLY for the next story in the life of Darren and Rob.  This post will be a "make fun of Darren" one... I promise I'll even it out going forward. 

When I was young, I was always the smallest kid.  My nickname in school was Shorty.  In 2nd grade I would come home and cry.  By the time I got to High School when people tried to drop some other name on me, I would defiantly make them stick to my given nickname.  That being said, being shorter came with negatives; yes, I was always last picked for anything athletic.  That being said again, I really didn't deserve to be picked any higher.  Bluntly, I sucked at sports.  I tried, and I had fun, but it never really worked out.  Except for one time senior year when we finally played floor hockey (which I had been begging every P.E. teacher for us to play).  The first day, of course, I was picked last.  Then I scored four goals in five minutes, including one from behind the net.

The next day I was a captain.  Yeah... serious gratification.  

Little did they know I had actually played in some floor hockey leagues when I was younger.  Heh... suck it, losers.  In later years Greg and I set up plywood boards around our basement and we played 1-on-1 floor hockey.  It was brutal because the area was about 18' long, so standing in front of a slap shot was sure to cause incredible pain.  We would do tournaments with his friends.  I would always be the Soviet team, just to piss everyone off.  Like the Soviets, I would dominate, especially on faceoffs where I could flick the ball to the right, let it kiss off the side plywood, draw my stick back and get a wrist shot into the net before the other guy could move.  I was also pretty fearless and would stand and take the shots ricocheting off my shins.  (We had a rule - no balls over the knee!  We weren't stupid...)

Anyway... right after that I started to kind of blossom with sports.  No, I was never a sportsball god, but I always brought some pluckiness to whatever I was in.  In college it took me a while to find the right guys, but we played pickup football and I dominated as a receiver and defensive back, to the point where they asked me to jump into their flag football league.  Lost in the semi-finals to a frat team that had plays they called in a hurry up offense.  I started playing 16" softball, which flowed into 12" softball, where I had this ability to hit to all fields; one year I hit over .650 (yeah, I was the stat geek, of course).  I was kind of speedy for a little guy, at least I got up to my max (whatever that was) in a step or two.  I also played for many years in a floor hockey league in Hoffman Estates, at a place behind the 7-11 on Hassell Rd.  GREAT time, great guys.  They sucked when they asked me to play and the first 4 games we didn't score a point; all shutouts.  I remember when I finally got our first goal in a scramble in front of the net, you'd think we won the championship.  Over the next few years we added a couple solid players and won the season standings a couple times.  Always had a great wrist shot with excellent aim, but no slapshot whatsoever.  I always led the team in two stats: penalty minutes and puking in the garbage can.  But nobody could win faceoffs like me, and nobody could kill a penalty single handed (I was great at trapping a guys stick against the boards so he couldn't move).  Man, it was a blast on those teams.

Now on the flip side of the coin, you had Darren.  For all his great attributes, physical activities weren't his strength (until he started running like Forrest Gump in his late '40's).  When he worked for HP they had a softball team which he asked me to ringer for.  D always hit last and caught.  But he had fun!  He never water-skied, skipped the parasailing thing I did in Key West, not a dancer... really, not a fan of athletics at all.  The only way Darren could beat me in basement floor hockey was when he'd take off his shirt and throw his sweat soaked body into me.  I would flinch away, completely grossed out, while he fired a shot into the goal.  It was his only move, but an effective one.

In the mid 80's (as I mentioned in past posts...) we had a TON of fun.  Part of that was working at Telecheck.  We had a blast with all our co-workers, and one of the activities we started with in late '85 (during the Bears heyday) was some weekend football.  It started off as Sales vs. Service (our department) with some other departments sprinkled in.  The first game was lighthearted, touch, girls and guys, beers in a cooler, etc... in the field behind Darren and Terri's apartment.  Somehow I ended up kind of dominating the game and Service won, and then we went and drank at Frankie's II.  A great day all around.

Telecheck folk behind Darren's apartment, in probably my only sports glory picture ever.

 

Sales didn't take it well, and those guys wanted it to be a bit more serious.  So we went at it again.  This time, tackle, only a couple girls, much more physical.  I brought my brother Greg, and he REALLY dominated; they couldn't tackle him.  Which was good, because Sales had a guy WE couldn't tackle.  I don't remember his name after 35 years, but he his nickname was "Fridge", just like William Perry on the Bears.  One guess why...  

Yeah... he was big.  Not Original Fridge big, but definitely bigger than the rest of us.

Oh... wait... almost forgot THIS story.  As I mentioned, we played in the field behind Darren's apartment.  We're playing, and Terri (and her best friend Annie) comes home from a shopping trip to a leather shop (Annie was into horses).  They step out of the car, reach into a bag and pull out a full sized leather whip.  Darren sees it, runs over, throws himself spread eagle face down on the ground and Terri proceeds to pretend to whip him.  The whole Telecheck crowd stares at him, mouths agape, and almost as one turn to look at me like he was my responsibility.  I could hear their thoughts in my mind; "He's YOUR friend".  Sigh..

Anyway, I digress....

So we're in the middle of the game.  I'm playing defensive back, Darren is kind of linebacker'ish.  On the snap, I run with a guy deep, but hear something behind me.  Turning around, I see that they dumped the ball short to our Telecheck Fridge.  The only guy between him and 7 points?  

Darren.  

Fridge turns up field.  Darren runs at him, but having ZERO football experience he comes in high.  Fridge cradles the ball and leans into Darren with a full head of steam.  Imagine a locomotive running over a baby carriage left carelessly on the tracks.  Fridge plows Darren without any lessening of momentum.  Darren's body straightens up, and with his left arm extended completely over his head he is turned 180 and crashes to the ground like a tree trunk cut down with a huge chain saw in one fell swoop.  A slow gasping groan escaped his lips as he fell, the Fridge running free for another touchdown.  If we are ever together, feel free to ask me, I can perfectly imitate the pain rising out his throat and forcing it's way into the open air.  

Its amazing how certain memories can be so incredibly vivid; the collision, the extended arm and pirouette, the sound he made as he crumpled. (and yes, even the words "Whip me!  Whip me!" earlier in the afternoon).  It is all indelibly inked in the recesses of my mind.  

My reaction?  "Well, I just lost my best friend".  Then I turned up field to receive the kick.  

I think he laid there for about 30 seconds.  I also think that was the last time he ever played pickup football...