Hey, You! Keep Your Pee to Yourself!

Yeah, you knew it was coming. I’d thought I could hold off and wait until my irritation went away so you wouldn’t have to endure yet another of these Bodily Effluvia Rants, but something The Ever-Gorgeous Earl told me this morning just won’t leave my head, and I’m pissed (!) off all over again.
Here’s the deal:  I have issues, OK? That’s been established. And one of my main issues is the things that come out of human’s bodies. Puke, spit, boogers, urine, feces—all those things? I don’t want to share them with you, OK? I don’t want to see them or smell them or hear about them, and I don’t want to be anywhere around you when you’re offloading them.
And do NOT post a comment telling me about emergencies, about things that can’t be helped. Sure, I know there are those instances. I try not to think about those. I stay away from children and trust that adults will take care of them in as inoffensive a way as possible, being Good & Compassionate People who always keep in mind that they’re sharing public space with everyone else.
Snort.
But what I’m ranting about here isn’t Emergency Pissing. It’s the kind of peeing that men do out of doors just because they can. Like the guy who was roofing the house down the street and went out into the alley and peed on the fence, right next to the street so that, as we walked past, there he was. Not trying to find a place to pee where maybe, gee, people walking past wouldn’t see him. No! Just right out there, whizzing against the fence, turning to look at us.
Now, am I the only woman who suspects that a great deal of this Out Of Door Peeing is just the tiniest bit hostile and aggressive? Maybe just the tiniest smidgen sexually hostile and aggressive? Like maybe the coward’s version of just whipping it out in line at the bank and going, “Hey, lady, look at my wiener!”?
Yeah, it is. And here’s why:  since I do not like to see people offloading their bodily waste, I try to stay away from places where they might do that (alleys at night, Bourbon Street any time, behind bushes in the park—you know), and I do not look closely at people who are acting strangely. You know? I do not want to know. So for me to tell you that I’ve seen easily half a dozen men peeing in the last month, you have to think, gee, they must have been airing out their dick right out there in the middle of the street.
Pretty much. Yes, indeed. I almost tripped over a guy whizzing against the wall of the Cabildo in the French Quarter. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! Right next to the church. A family with two little girls in dresses was at the other end of the walkway. I had to jump back out of the way lest I get his piss on my shoes (which, I might add, I always put in the bathtub  every morning when we’re in the French Quarter, lord knows. Lots and lots of soap and shampoo on those babies).
And the guys peeing on the side of the road as we drove from here to there and back? Since I have This Thing about seeing people doing disgusting stuff, I’m not riding along, craning my neck to see what’s going on when a car’s stopped on the side of the road. I do not want to know. So if there are half a dozen times I see a man standing out there taking a whiz, you know it’s because he was standing away from his vehicle, in an upright position, without anything screening him from the highway, peeing.
You tell me.
And then this morning is the topper. I’m (foolishly) reading the Midland Reporter Telegram, reading out loud the mind-boggling letters to the editor (we’re still big on the whole “birthers”  idiocy, and boy, howdy, if THAT one doesn’t make you think you need to move to Berkeley, I don’t know what will), and there’s yet another letter about Alex Saldana, who was recently convicted of murder. I did not follow the trial, but The EGE did. The letter this morning was apparently by a relative complaining that the verdict was racist, etc., and claiming that Saldana was a loving father, etc. You know. I knew only that, back last November, Saldana had fired a couple of shots in a Whataburger parking lot, killing a man he didn’t know, a guy who’d stopped with his wife and kids to get a snack.
Well. Turns out, my husband tells me, Saldana was urinating in the parking lot and two men going into the restaurant FOR FOOD said something to him about it. Something, I’m guessing, along the lines of, “Hey, dude:  they have actual restrooms inside this building!” He reportedly didn’t like the way they were looking at him (gee:  the way they were looking at him while he was pissing outside a restaurant?) and got his gun and, at some point, fired it. Those men went inside. The other guy heard the shots, got out to see if something had hit his truck, and was killed immediately.
Because this guy was peeing in the parking lot. Outside a restaurant with a public restroom. And took offense at the way other men looked at him.
Goodlordalmighty.
If I were in charge? Oh, let’s not even go there. I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I were the one given the decision here. Hell, he wouldn’t even have had to KILL anyone:  he’d have been in enough trouble just for the peeing.
So here’s what I say:  if you find yourself somewhere with the absolute need to pee, look for a restroom. Duh. (And if you’re arguing that I’m being uptight and that Men Don’t Need Restrooms, then you must immediately do this:  remove all your clothes and burn them, along with all the ones in your closet—because, you know, if you’re going to expose your dick to pee, you might as well just walk around with it swinging free all the time, right? Then tear down your bathroom and go out in your backyard and dig a pit right under your bedroom window—since it’s natural to pee out of doors, it’s equally natural to crap out of doors as well, and since you don’t mind other people having to smell your urine, then you probably think it’s OK for them to have to smell your feces. But since your neighbors aren’t going to like it, you’d better have your toilet pit right in the middle of your own property—right next to your bedroom, where you can keep tabs on whether it’s time to add a layer of dirt. Or lime).
If, for some reason, there is no restroom and this is an absolute Peeing Emergency, then you must pretend you are a woman:  you must find a place to pee where no one else can see you do it, lest they catch sight of you peeing and become so aroused (and don’t make that noise at me—in trying to find statistics to bolster my argument that urinating outdoors is unsanitary, I came across an unbelievable number of websites devoted to the turn-on of women peeing out of doors. It was astounding, but now, at least, I have a better understanding of how our society can produce, oh, serial killers and John Birchers and Michael Jackson and “birthers” and Rush Limbaugh = human beings are just some very, very screwed-up creatures) that they can’t control themselves. Or that’s the claim they’ll make later, at the trial.
You know, my inclination, as I get older and more crotchety, has been narrowly reined in. It’s just a matter of time before I start yelling at guys, telling them, “Good lord, man, find a toilet. And put that thing back in your pants. Jesus. I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
Now, it seems, that may get me—or someone nearby—shot. At least I’ll die having gotten it off my chest, though, huh? And aren’t we all happy about that~~