Czech your bladder

Or, A tale of peeing in Prague.

The year, 2011. The continent, Europe. The mission, impossible.


One day, while living the lives of spoiled brats abroad, two friends and I decided to depart Dublin in favor of sunnier cities and warmer days. Other spoiled brats will know what a pain in your private parts flying budget European airlines is: your luggage can't be larger than a men's wallet and can't weigh more than three feathers, you can't be afraid of most likely dying while landing in the next city, and you must be willing to travel at the most ungodly of hours. So, I packed two pairs of shorts, a few shirts, a one-piece romper, and planned to wear the only shoes I would bring. We slept in our travel clothes for a few hours and then our cheap asses were off to Italy, the Czech Republic, and France. We ventured from Dublin at an hour that belongs to a confusing area between night and morning and where the stumbling drunk people are gone but cafe and newsstand workers aren't out yet. Just us and our taxi.

The weather forecast for this trip was 75 and sunny in every city, and we made sure we had sun screen and were well hydrated. After we left Rome and Cinque Terre for Prague though, we were burnt and thirsty. Our flight delayed and a whole day lost, we slept and rose early to pack in a tour of the entire city in one day. The tour, courtesy of our weirdo hostel manager, would be four hours long. Four hours full of beating rays of deadly sunlight and hot air sucking us dry. I wore my most comfortable outfit: the one-piece romper (shorts and lace-top ensemble) and my one pair of shoes. I vowed to buy a water anywhere we stopped on the walking tour, starting with our hostel lobby, which was the first stop. This is how weird our guide was: He'd etched his favorite Czech people's names onto the door of the hostel, but also included Wes Anderson with no explanation but, "Because of Tenenbaums." Sure. Okay, then.

Fast forward five and a half hours later. Fast forward through the Kafka Museum, Old Square, the bridges, the Lennon wall, the Castle gardens, and six large bottles of water. Finally, escaping from the wrath of Wes Anderson's biggest fan, the three of us asked for a suggestion of a restaurant and then set our for a place called Bar Bar where the food was hearty and the beer was....big. Exhausted and more burnt, we finally plopped down at Bar Bar and ordered the only drinks on the menu: enormous mugs of ambiguous Czech beer. Mmmm. To be clear, these beers were stupid big. I was sitting with my elbow on the table and my head in my hand when they arrived. As the waitress slammed mine down next to me, my eyes were even with the foam spilling over the top. That kind of big.

It took all my energy to lift that mug of delicious, ambiguous Czech beer, with both hands mind you, and take possibly the most refreshing sip of liquid my tongue has ever had the pleasure of tasting. A plate full of roasted potatoes, stuffed chicken, and some crunchy asparagus later, we were deliriously full with Czech food and a little loopy from Czech beer. We planned to walk all the way back to Old Square for a festival where we could sit outside now that the sun was going down, eat sausage, and drink Pilsner Urquells. As my mother raised me properly, I knew such a walk after such a day would require me to use the bathroom first. And then the fun started.

I packed my wallet, phone, and camera in my bag, threw it across my body, and stood up from the table to make for the bathroom. Oh my God. No. Oh my GOD. Stay calm. I walked slowly with the tensest muscles as I could manage, tried to remain calm, and casually moved twenty feet to the ladies room. Oh, thank God. I made it. Whew. I opened the heavy wooden door and took two more steps to the stall. But when I turned to lock the stall door behind me, I could barely stand up straight anymore. Then I looked down, and said out loud, "Oh shit. No. No, no, no." I saw the shiny links of my purse across my body from shoulder to hip. Under that, a knotted belt. Under that, six buttons on my top half and four under my belt. And even if I conquered the purse, belt, and buttons triathlon, I still had to pull the romper off my arms and down my legs.

As I lifted my purse from my shoulder, it happened. I peed my pants. Twenty-one years old, sober, in the daytime, in a bathroom, standing next to a toilet. I peed my pants. Down my legs, on my shoes. I managed to...stop. And then strip and actually use the bathroom the way they're meant to be used. But the damage had been done. I was a human adult who peed her pants because she was too lazy to use the bathroom when she arrived at a restaurant after drinking six bottles of water. After cleaning off my legs and feet for ten minutes, I looked at my splotchy, wet shoes and romper. And then I said a prayer to the gods of the Dyson Airblade Hand Drier, ran to the bathroom door, locked it, and dried off my clothes.

I ran out of the bathroom, slinging my bag over my shoulder, yelled, "Ready? Good! Let's go," and darted out of Bar Bar, down the street, and around the corner vowing never to speak of this event ever. It was like a month later when it became funny and I told my two friends what had happened that fateful day in Bar Bar on a small side street in Prague. The day that I peed my pants.

What's in the mail

I sometimes forget about mail made out of paper and delivered in trucks. When you're a 22-year-old, unemployed, recently soft-bodied faux-adult and you receive mail made out of paper, it's quite confusing. That mail is complicated further when it involves a small box and has your name on the front of it.

Let's go back, back, way back for a minute all the way to four years ago almost exactly: July something, 2008. I had just received a high school diploma. I was built like an overcooked string bean. I had long, flowing blonde hair. And I had recently returned from the torturous, virtually purposeless, annoyingly awkward weekend that is the cruel hell of (dun, dun, dun) college orientation. Since direct human contact was already decidedly out of fashion and Mark Zuckerberg had already put the college experience online, some annoying overly ambitious members of our future college community made like 57 facebook groups so we could all creepily get to know each other without ever directly communicating. We all looked around and tried to gauge how attractive people were, make declaration like "I will never talk to X" or "I want to date Y," and take inventory of profile pictures which were without fail one of the following: grad pictures/prom pictures (= attractive), keg-stands (= cool), or duck-faced self-taken photos (this category definitely included the nameless person featured in the rest of this story). Then people would write on all 57 groups: "Blaa can't wait to get wasted, bros!" and "Yea were gunna rage every nite!!!!!" or "Is there vegan food?" Real high highfalutin conversation. Some giant idiot person, who remains a mystery to me to this day, decided to take the 500+ class list and match everyone up with a partner. Everyone was then supposed to make a mixed CD, yes, a MIXED CD, and MAIL those MIXED CDs to each other for a purpose as mysterious as the the identity of this idea's creator. Can't I just I.M. them the link to my favorite band's MySpace? (If this was now, we could all just tag each other in Spotify. Ugh, I do not miss the 2000's. Am I right?) Let me rephrase, can't I just not participate in this for one single second?

As can be inferred from the tone of this story, I thought this was an idea I was not interested in pursuing. Although, if I did do it, one of three things would have happened:
1. I would have made a CD of '90s TV theme songs and mailed that and looked funny.
2. I would have sent a blank CD and looked like a dick.
3. I would have pretended to be really into indie bands and underground music and looked like I was trying too hard cool.
Instead, I turned my nose up to the internet and did not participate. I can't actually find anyone who did; so the giant idiot person who made this all up probably (read: hopefully) feels like a giant idiot.

So years go by, friends come and go, I move to Ireland for awhile, I come back. I create a club about being healthy and empowered. The club partly becomes a place to discuss how bad Katy Perry actually is for American youth because why-oh-why is there so much whipped cream involved and fembot boobs? Did I miss something? Should I be buying bras that shoot stuff at people? If so, does Target sell them? If I utilize whipped cream more often in my life will I become better at life? Didn't she start off as a Christian rock artist? With her money and fame shouldn't she have been able to hire someone to spell check the names of her songs? "Ur" and "n" for example. You annoy me, Kathryn Hudson (yea that's right I know her real name), because I sometimes like your newer songs, but would never admit it. Never, I say. I can't even begin to discuss the fembot-boobs moving to the biggest, most intense screen possible: IMAX 3D, a place which should be reserved for documentaries about oceans, rereleases of Titanic and hopefully a day-long Toy Story Trilogy IMAX 3D Experience someday, and movies based on book series (But not Twilight, never Twilight. Twilight is worse than Katy Perry somehow. Maybe glistening and staring deeply into people's eyes are worse punishments than fembot-boobs, dumb lyrics, and whipped cream. I don't know though.) I digress.

It's the first few weeks of senior year and we're all trying to live up to the "let's get wasted" plans of the original facebook orientation groups from 3 years earlier. But it's terribly difficult work because most of us are nerdy and none of us are good at being hungover. It's a Friday night and 10 of us are in a friend's room doing alcohol. It was one of those nights that nothing really happens but you're sore the next day from laughing. And because of the hangover. Mostly the laughing thing though. For instance, one friend, we'll call her Ms. Mafia, put a birthday balloon under her shirt and demanded we take a picture of her pregnant and drinking a beer. Healthy, empowered woman. She's going to actually be president one day. "But why birthday balloons?" you might be asking. "But why male models?" I might respond. Birthday balloons because it was someone's birthday; we'll call her Gagey.

Birthday Gagey later in the night was put to sleep before we even got to the bar. Happy 21st birthday at  a suburban liberal farts college, Birthday Gagey! However, at this point in the night, Birthday Gagey was rearing and ready to go. She was sitting at her desk with her tiara on and a bottle of something in hand pouring a few shots for everyone, when suddenly she swung around and started screaming at innocent Me, "Ya know what, you can leave! YOU NEVER MADE ME A CD AT ORIENTATION, ERIN!" To which I could respond only by actually spitting my drink across the room like in movies and falling to the floor laughing, where I remained rolling around for a few minutes unsure if I'd ever recover. After the initial screaming died down, we all had a nice long talk about how no one participated in the stupid CD swap on facebook as it was not only asking us to do something that is now a relic of the '90s and early '00s, but it was just embarrassing for the giant idiot person who created it. If I remember correctly, which I absolutely do not, Birthday Gagey informed us that she HAD in fact made me a CD that fateful summer but never sent it because she didn't want to send one and never get one back. I'd like to add a fourth option to the list above: Make CD, never send it due to lack of confidence. Bring it up years later. Look like a professional saboteur.

Last week, a box arrived with my name on it. Inside: Katy Perry's 2008 album, One of the Boys. With it: a handwritten note, copied below. Some information has been removed and replaced.

Dear 2008 Erin,
Hey it's me--2008 [Birthday Gagey]! Wow I can't believe we're going to college! I wonder what it'll be like. I can't wait to talk to all the people I've gotten friend requests from--I just have a feeling I'll have actual conversations with all of them and none of them will transfer.
Have you been talking to anyone on AIM? IM me when you're free--[ilovebirthdays10]! I've talked to [a random moron] a little bit, it turns out he has cousins in my town. I know what you're thinking...FATE! I mean at orientation and on tours and that time [our liberal farts college's] admissions rep came to my high school they told me that 75% of students marry someone from [the liberal farts college]! Look at me getting ahead of myself. I've only had one kiss before.
Anyways, here is your CD! This CD was released June 17, 2008, and I think you are going to LOVE IT.
Can't wait to see you around campus! I'm living in [the freshman dorm ~97mi from main campus where the people who live there only ever see each other and rarely know where the main cafeteria is even located. It used to be a seminary and is the worst/weirdest place.], even though it's far away I think I'll still see plenty of people around campus.
TTYL,
2008 [Birthday Gagey]

PS--Do you drink? I've been drunk like 2 times before but when I visited my sister at college it seemed like something everyone does. I'm still not sure about it though