What Should You Do?

There’s no denying it, with three pee stories, I have officially moved into the realm of too-many-stories-about pee.

I was worked on a show called “What Should You Do?” for Lifetime TV. It was a great show about women overcoming the most difficult situations they would ever face. They were attacked, stalked, survived fires, hurricanes, rapes, and robberies. You name it, the women we profiled survived it. The premise of the show was to answer the question, what did these women do to save themselves? I admired every woman that I spoke with.

One day I was working on several stories at once and ran to the bathroom to pee. I was distracted and busy and slouched on the seat. When I pulled up my jeans, the back waistband was wet. What the H-E-L-L? I had peed on my jeans. Ick.

There was nothing for it but to go back to work until I dried off. Lovely. Once back at my desk, I tried to forget that I had a pee-soaked waistband. Needless to say, I sat perched on the seat and away from the back of the chair. One of the directors going out to tape a story came into my office to talk. She stopped mid sentence.

“It smells like beer in here,” she said.

“Oh, does it?”

Note to self, pee smells like beer.

What would the heroic women think if they knew that, for one afternoon, they were talking to a woman that “smelled like beer?” They'd tell me what to do.

Pee Jag

As long as I'm on a pee jag, here's a story about Susan. Susan had been a singer in Chicago, a talented and ambitious girl, she decided to move to the Big Show, Los Angeles. There were lots of talented and ambitious singers in LA, so after singing the circuit, Susan became a booker on talk shows. Like a lot of people in LA, a second career was born. I met Susan on a variety show. She was single and lookin'.
During the show, Susan met a guy named Everett. He was a has-been writer in need of a second career but found Susan instead. He moved in to her house. He took. She gave. It's classic.

Susan would say, "Everett's such a talented writer. People won't give him a chance." It was like listening to a mother straining to convince you that it's a blessing to have a difficult child.

Susan couldn't see that she was the prize and this guy was using her. But having a man on her arm seemed enough.

For Everett, things turned out dandy. Susan's talk him up and, with her connections, got him a writing job and he pomptly left her.

One day shortly after the breakup Susan and I were having lunch at Hugo's in West Hollywood. Susan said that she had no regrets and, in fact, Everett had left her with one valuable lesson.

"Everett taught me to pee in the shower."

"What?" I said.

"Men do it all the time," said Susan. "It's a wonderful, freeing feeling."

"I think being free of Everett is the wonderful feeling," I said.

Showering the next morning, I thought about it. It's hard to do because girl muscles are trained to let go only when you're sitting down. But I tried. You know, it is a freeing feeling.

And Susan? She has a tiny dog on her arm now and is living happily ever after...with Hunter.