I don’t know if girls peeing in the bush is a particularly West Indian thing…or maybe it’s just not urban – there are a lot more hydrants than bushes along one’s path in NYC, I suppose. I recall some years ago in Princeton, after a night of debauch…well, it wasn’t quite debauchery. Think debauchery, but then tone it way down…yeah. Ok. So, after a night of *that*, a gal pal and I were on our way back to our dorm, and having indulged in much libation, she needed to relieve herself and hastily so. She was beside herself as she realised hers was the losing side in the Battle of the Kegels – I was beside myself that she fought so hard at all. “Yonder bush doth offer coverage! Suffer thyself not in worriment, but relieve thyself thence!” And that is the story of how bush-peeing came to the Tri-State area.
Since being back in Barbados, my ‘bush to porcelain’ ratio has begun to tip a little. There are times when a bathroom is just not available. (By ‘times’ I mean when I’m at a beach after facility closing hours.) If you’ve seen the ‘Where to Pee in NYC’ post, you already know how it is. But those options are just not available seaside. So here are a few tips if ever your beach lime is threatened to be undone by the need to GO. NOW.
1. Survey the beach perimeter for feasible bathroom options – a bar with an understanding bartender, a hotel with friendly lobby staff. Should this fail – and it will, though roughly only 7 times out of 10 in my experience – proceed to #2.
2. Alert a female pal. If you’re in a crowd, you may need to send a text message to achieve discretion, if deemed necessary.
3. Finding a good bush is easy. You’ll want coverage of at least 70% of the circumference of the ‘pee zone’. You will stoop facing out of the bush.
4. Here’s the tricky part – you need to be sure that your leg placement forms the correct angle with the stream trajectory in order to avoid FCIS: Foot Caught In Stream. Preventative measures include utilising a Wide Spread stance with the feet turned out to 2nd position, and a Half Squat instead of being too close to the ground – a common novice error. You really want to aim for more of a plie.
5. Use your last ounce of squeeze-and-hold energy to do a quick survey of all possible vantage points before you let loose the geyser. And the gal-pal isn’t there to look pretty, make sure she’s stationed approximately 4.273 feet away, facing out.
There’s a couple other details I could mention, but those will take us away from the survival basics into concepts of personal style, and I don’t want to confuse the core of the matter here. Sure in an ideal world, beach bathrooms would be open and *clean* 24/7, but that’s just not the case. And I’ll be damned if I let anything sour my beach experience. Rally on, troops.
