The Urinal FlashA Story by Chillbear Latrigue The story that I wish had never happened. The most embarrassing moment of my life... The following events actually occurred and were not embellished for this story:
Cops often have to go to classes to obtain new certifications or to update existing ones. For some reason these classes are always 40 hours or 80 hours. If there is 12 hours worth of information, you go to a 40 hour class to learn it. If there is any amount of content that would take more than 12 hours to cover, you end up attending an 80 hour course. It is one of the many ways that the government wastes your tax money.
The one exception to this is a class called Instructor Techniques Workshop. This is the one class that I have attended that utilized most of the allotted time. We had 50 minutes of instruction then a ten minute bathroom break every hour for ten days. Spartan by police standards.
It was the fourth day into the class when I decided to compensate for a late night of revelry with a few cups of coffee. It wasn’t long into one of the segments when there was a mild degree of urgency building within the walls of my bladder. I decided to persevere until the scheduled break. What I had not considered at that time, is that all of the classes at the Academy get their breaks around the same time. As a consequence, lines form to the bathroom.
As luck would have it, I was able to beat most of the cadets and several of my classmates to the restroom. I had to wait anxiously for a few minutes until I was finally in front of gleaming white porcelain Foster Wheeler Flush Boy (I made that up. It was just a urinal. The rest is true).
Now, the standard protocol for a man urinating in a crowded restroom is:
Urinate – shake – put it away – zip and turn.
You may then proceed to the sink to wash your hands. I don’t know if it was anxiety or just the fact that I had spent the past 30 minutes squirming in discomfort, but I did the following:
Urinated – shook – turned and faced everyone – put it away and zipped.
Flashing four male members of my class alone would have been bad enough if no one had said anything, but one of the cops said: “Dude, you could put your junk away, you know.”
I have made a life out of escaping almost any situation with a joke. If I was James Bond, I would have much better lines before I was eaten by sharks or sliced in two with a laser. The other difference between us would be that I would invariably die right after my clever line, where he goes on to save the world. However, since no one tries to kill me (usually), the joke approach works just fine.
So here is what my rapier wit came up with to make this horrible faux pas go away:
“I just wanted to show you guys what you were missing.”
Before you go any further, please, go back and reread that line. I am neither homosexual nor prejudiced against homosexual people. I do feel that, whether gay or straight, we have a moral obligation not to show our “junk” to unwitting bystanders. If you do cross that social boundary, I don’t feel that it is appropriate to drop a taunting line inferring that the act was intentional, and for that matter, flirty. My words beating me about my head, I left the bathroom without washing my hands. Not really embarrassing but a bit unhygienic. Don’t worry I’ve washed them since.
So I went out to tell my partner (the cop kind) what had happened. After he eventually was able to pick himself up off of the ground, he sought out the member of our class that I had offended to verify my story…which of course exactly what I felt like doing. I apologized to him, but the damage had been done. I was humiliated, but alive. Or so I thought.
Later that night, I was at the food court at the local mall, feasting on some bourbon chicken, when I was telling the story to another friend of mine. We laughed so hard that a piece of the chicken lodged in my throat. I finally cleared my windpipe just before he reached me to do the Heimlich maneuver. The entire food court was watching. The embarrassing moment was not done with me. It had tried to kill me with chicken.
Whoever said “no one ever died of humiliation,” wasn’t there the day of the urinal. I know my mortification will eventually be the death of me, but this story had to be told. Remember the protocol, my friends.
http://www.myspace.com/chanceransom
© 2008 Chillbear LatrigueAuthor's Note
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Added on February 7, 2008Last Updated on February 8, 2008 Author
Chillbear LatrigueFort Lauderdale, FLAboutVanilla childhood accompanied by a benign education. Got into Finance to get rich. When I didn't get rich, I got bored and became a cop. When that didn't cure my boredom I started looking for escapes... more..Writing
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