Split Stream Woes

[If you're a woman, this post is not meant for your eyes. Please avert your eyes now by either closing this window, or hitting the BACK button on your browser, or clicking the 'NEXT BLOG' link in the upper right corner of this screen, or whatever it takes for you to surf away from this entry. Really, ladies, there is no reason on God's green earth you need to read this.]

Now that we've gotten that out of the way....

Gentlemen -- My one helpful bit of advice to you today after a slight mishap this weekend: Always, always, ALWAYS watch as you do your business standing up at the toilet. When you least expect it, it'll happen.

I'm talking about split streams.

You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about that annoying situation that happens once in a while, when you just leisurely whip it out to start your whizz, when suddenly you realize that you're going in more than one direction, and it's impossible to aim both streams into the bowl at the same time. If you're not paying attention, things get messy. And wet.

This weekend, at Poker Night Number 2, I excused myself to take a quick leak. Not having yet etablished the hard-and-fast rule I just announced above, I stood there and absent-mindedly looked around the bathroom: Nice wall cabinet above the toilet (with doorless shelf housing a box of tissues); cute shower curtain; dish of potpourri on the sink....

until I noticed that my left thigh was getting... warm. And wet.

Thank goodness for Kegel exercises, because I shut that flow down PDQ. But it was too late: there was a rather prominent patch of dark on my blue jeans. And there would be no discreet way to hide it.

I managed to finish my original job (peeing, not wetting my pants) without causing further damage, but what damage had been done was going to be difficult to explain. Eventually I had to try to subtly make my way back to the living room and hide behind some furniture. Then I made my way over the coat rack and grabbed my pullover for the purpose over loosely holding it in front of my body. (Clever, ain't I?) Thankfully, my subtlety paid off and my strange behavior went unnoticed. (At least I would like to continue to delude myself that this is what went down.)

Those pants hit the washer immediately upon my return home.

Those split streams. They're waiting for you when you least expect it. Always be on the lookout.

** 10:17 a.m.: Only slightly unrelated story: I went to the men's room just now at the office. There's construction going on in a suite across the hall from me, so the lights are messed up, including in the bathroom. By the time the door closed behind me, the room was pitch black. Unable to aim in the dark, I basically had to go to the door with my pants undone, open it to let some light in, hurry back to the urinal and position myself before the last sliver of light escaped, then do my business in the complete darkness. So much for "always being on the lookout." If I had peed my pants again, I think I would have just screamed.