Chapter 2

Wow! You must really be scandalized to click to the second chapter, huh? Either that, or I actually made you laugh… or disgusted… Anyways, the show must go on!

As I mentioned earlier, most of the people you meet will probably say they've never experienced anything that is even remotely similar to what has happened to me over the years (but we both know it's not true, right?)! These awkward memories of wetting the bed are well hidden somewhere, but they're there. I am uncovering mine in the effort to say: WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE!

Okay, there is one thing that no one else has done that only I own the humiliating memory. Alright, here goes: have you ever peed in a plastic bag?

"Of course not! I have no idea WHATSOEVER of peeing in a plastic bag! None!"

Right (wink).

Unlike men, women are disadvantaged in the way that they cannot empty their bladders standing up. Therefore, I cannot stop by the side of the road and do my business as men would against walls. Hehe, no, I can't. Instead, I have to find a suitable, well-kept area with a lot of privacy. I'm sure the women out there know what I'm talking about!

Anyways, I happen to have a very weak bladder and a horrible habit of drinking many bottles of ice tea during road trips. Also should you know that ice tea quickly dehydrates the body giving one the urge to urinate. I was more disadvantaged than usual not knowing this (until several years of experience taught me). It was the winter of 2005, on one of the many icy highways in Switzerland between Montreux and France. My mom was driving while I was in the back seat. I had just finished my extra large McDonald's cup of ice tea (which I inconveniently threw away), and I was eager on returning home to a very cozy bed.

Soon enough, I realized that I needed a toilet real, real bad.

"Uh, mom..?"

She looked back at me and asked me what was wrong. Technically, she didn't really need to ask; my terrified expression gave it all away.

"Can't you hold it for just a little longer?"

I don't think 'a little longer' was the correct phrase to describe my situation. We were in a car, on a highway, in the middle of snowy NOWHERE, at least half an hour away from our apartment. I gave it all I could, but I knew I could not hold on any longer.

My mom was starting to freak out, thinking I would wet the back seat, and the car wasn't even ours. Had we been in our own Nissan back in Morocco, we would've had a plastic bottle cut in half by the car's cigarette lighter, and that would've been the end of it. But this was Switzerland! The land where, back then, would have PET recycling bins everywhere!

So mom was freaking out, I was freaking out, and pee was on its way. She grabbed a plastic bag on the seat beside her and threw it back at me. For a moment, I didn't know what to think. Before I knew it, I have no idea why or how, but I did pee in a plastic bag. I can't remember what happened afterwards…. Maybe there was a hole in it..? I'm only thankful that a cop didn't pass nearby!

This wasn't the first or last time I've peed in a car. But I find it strange it always happened back in the winter.

Like this other time, my sister, my cousin, and I were in Vevey, waiting for our bus that would take us back home to come. With my luck, we ended up taking the wrong bus, and stopping at the wrong stop. Keep in mind, it's winter, and I consumed monstrous amounts of lemon ice tea. By the time we realized we have missed our stop, night had already covered the entire area. We asked the bus driver to stop and we found ourselves on the sidewalk of a road covered in snow, at night, beside the forest.

There wasn't anything else we could do but walk. I thank Allah to this day that we haven't been kidnapped right then and there.

And, of course, I found myself dreaming about, not a hot mug of cocoa, but a nice, clean, porcelain toilet waiting for me back home. Of all the thoughts and worries that should have gone through my mind at that moment, the wild animals that could've been in the forest, getting hit by a car and so on, only a bathroom clung to my thoughts. I didn't bring it up at first, considering the consequences we were in, but after about fifteen minutes, another insane and crazy idea of mine was created. I turned to my older sister, shivering behind me, and I asked: "Do you think that my pee will become an icicle if I stop and pee here?"

She laughed at my idea and said that, yes, if I did urinate in Switzerland with negative-some-dozen Celsius degrees at night, my pee would probably become ice before it would even hit the ground. So I tried to concentrate on my walking more, until she said she needed to pee too. Unlike me, she actually really considered going through with my idea until my cousin had to bring her back to reality.

We managed to find ourselves the right bus (the last one on the schedule!) by the light on my cousin's phone. When we arrived, both my sister and I raced to the bathroom and, with my luck, my sister ended up using the toilet first. I really couldn't hold on to it any longer since I've been walking in the cold for about an hour, fantasizing on how perfect this moment would be. So I simply rushed in and peed in the bathtub instead.

I've never told my father I used his bathtub as a toilet, for he would've been very mad. This is the first time I tell this story.