Caught With My Pants Down

My mother potty-trained me. I was obviously very young when this took place and cannot even fathom a guess as to why that particular duty fell to her. It did, nonetheless, and there were consequences because of that. Consequences I shamefully bore.

This may shock you, but women don’t pee standing up, despite the invention of this product, which I hear doesn’t work all that well.

Well, sure, but can you write your name in the snow with it?

Of course, I was potty-trained roughly 30 years before the invention of this product, so my mom couldn’t really practice with this. Suffice to say, I was not properly trained on how to pee at a urinal, and learned by public humiliation.

My first day of kindergarten was horrific. Not only was I away from my mother for really the first time ever, I was surrounded by children I didn’t know and was in the care of a complete stranger. During that day nature called, as it inevitably does.

I was granted leave to, you know, relieve myself. I wandered the hallways until I reached the boy’s room, walked up to the urinal, and proceeded to take care of business, so to speak.

That’s when a group of, what I assume were, sixth-graders walked into the restroom to find me standing at the urinal…with my pants around my ankles, my bare ass enjoying an air-conditioned breeze while peeing into the urinal.

You know how in cartoons when characters have a really good laugh they end up rolling around on the ground, clutching their bellies to prevent their innards from bursting out? I saw that happen in real life that day. Those kids laughed like the hyenas from The Lion King; their whooping hysterical laughter the result of seeing my naked tush.

I quickly finished my business (as quickly as you can when your pants are around your ankles in front of a group of strange boys who are laughing at you), then ran from the bathroom back my classroom, dignity (or lack thereof) be damned.

Needless to say, before the twins began school, I ensured they knew to leave their trousers up when they use the urinal. “You only need to unbutton, unzip, and pull down your underoos enough to let it all out,” I told them time and again. No way I was letting that happen to them.

When C is old enough, he will receive the same lesson. Of course, we’re still working on his potty-training, so one thing at a time.

Do you have any embarrassing potty stories from your childhood? Or perhaps from your children?