Nature calls…

Part 1 – The agony

After six days of heavy work on the field, Sam got a chance to party on Saturday night. He had a few beers and some pizzas until three in the morning. Due to the excessive eating and drinking, he had to break up from his sleep, due to nature’s call; a call he could not avoid or postpone, at eight in the morning, which was midnight by his standards.

When he woke up, he woke up with a very sharp pain in his abdomen. Six days of sleeplessness and excessive partying the previous night didn’t help. Sam woke up when he was half asleep. He wanted to stay half asleep because being half awake is enough to attend nature’s call and being half asleep would help him to get back to that “fully asleep” or knocked-out-cold-yet-again state soon.

He went to the bathroom door and to his horror he found that it was already occupied. “Who the hell it could be?” he thought. Then he suddenly remembered that there was a girl sharing the other bedroom in his house. Sam did not like Claire as she was a bit bitchy about everything. For a long time Claire wanted to get back on Sam for whatever he had done to her in the past.

“Hey.. Its me, Sam.. how are you?” He asked standing in front of the toilet door.

He waited for a minute and there was no reply. Then he realized that he had asked a dumb question. He waited for moment but the pressure on his abdomen was getting worse.

Sam was sure that he would be embarrassed if he asked for help but he had to, only to avoid bigger embarrassment. And he knew it. He gathered all his courage and said “Hey, it is a kind of an emergency here. Can you please come out quickly?”

“Ok, that’s fine” she said.

Sam felt a bit relieved that Claire was not playing any games on him during absolute emergency.

Five minutes went by. Staying half awake became dangerous. He had to concentrate and put in all the efforts to stay clean.

Ten minutes went by. The door was still locked. The shower was still on. Now, Sam had to hold his lower abdomen tightly to ease some pressure.

“Hey, are you not coming out? I said it is an emergency” he shouted and banged on the door twice.

The sound of water from the shower stopped. Sam felt a bit relieved.

“Of what kind?” she asked.

“What?”

“I mean the emergency. Of what kind?” she asked again.

“That bitch” he thought. Sam wanted to force the door open. Or shout at her. But, that required some effort and energy. Diverting his energy on to something else would be disastrous. So, he started thinking of ways to get himself to safety.

A few options came up. Some of them are 1) Call 911 2) Call the cab and go to his friend’s house. But, were they awake, and what if the toilet there was occupied as well? And 3) Use the kitchen sink. But, that was not wise. Atleast he was sane enough to discard the third option.

So he took the phone and dialed for the taxi. Form his experience, he knew that the taxi would cost four pounds. After calling for the taxi, he went to his wardrobe and started pulling out all the coins he had. He had about a hundred twenty pence coins. He took them out and started building a building out of the twenty pence coins, by placing one on top of the other.

Now, Sam could not stand straight. He found by accident that by bending fifteen degrees, the pressure on the abdomen was minimal.

Five more minutes went by. Now, even thinking became difficult. Sam felt that it took so much amount of energy to think. He had no faith in god, but started praying. Two incidents within twelve hours was too much to take.

While coming out of the party the precious night, after gulping a few beers, he had an urge to use the restroom. Due to excessive amount of fluid that went into his system, and due to the fact that it was winter, the urge was all of a sudden and was sharp. He was standing in the middle of the city with no public toilets nearby and no shops open except the pubs and the night clubs.

He hurried into the same pub from which he came out only a couple of minutes back.

“Five pounds sir” the bouncer said

“What?”

“Five pounds for entry after 2 AM sir” he said politely

“But I just came out from here”

“That’s ok sir, but you are going in now. We don’t charge for coming out of the pub” he said and winked

“Will this be the most expensive urination experience in the world ?” Sam thought for a moment, but every minute became precious and he had the money. He paid for it and rushed to the restroom. When he came out, his face was fresh and clear. He felt like he was reborn.

Now, Sam was standing in front of the restroom in his house, almost dead six hours after he was reborn, with five pounds in his hand but still could not use the toilet. What a shame!

He was counting his minutes, but now minutes became seconds. And then he came to a point that disaster was looming any moment. He dragged himself to the main hall, which is equidistant from the toilet and the main door. Sam kept his cab option open as well.

Then he heard a click; a click that he was dying to hear. When she came out of the toilet, he stood straight just to show her that his emergency was not as critical as she would have thought. Sam ensured that he didn’t breathe for thirty seconds until she crossed him. When she went into her room and locked, he started running towards the toilet.

All the creatures in the world, except the humans, do not have this problem nor do they pay for excretion. We, humans, in the name of civilization, have enforced rules on ourselves which leads to such emergencies.

All the other animals pee anywhere they wanted to. Aquatic species don’t have to worry about it though. Elephants pee about five liters on the streets and yet it never declares an emergency. But humans pee less than a liter but we had to follow strict rules.

“It does not make any sense for me” Sam thought while in the toilet. Humans are the most intellectual creatures in this planet and yet, we cannot do certain things at certain times even though it is an absolute emergency.

Isn’t that a shame?