Why You Should Never Tell Me You Really Have To Go To The Bathroom

I don't know about you, but I've never "worked a booth" at a conference before, but I did about this time last year.  My employer, a biological organization, was hosting an international scientific conference, so I worked our booth.  We got a lot of folks coming by for information about the Society and the usual swag (T shirts, buttons, books, "Ed Monton" the souvenir plush caribou). Of course it was wax and wane - 45 minutes of nuttiness and two hours looking at each other, waiting for the next break after presentations.

And two hours is a long time, which is filled with inane yak.  After one busy stint Drew, our Membership Coordinator, said, "I MUST go to the Ladies!"   I freaked out and said GO RIGHT NOW.  She looked a little startled, but then went. She came back and said, Um?  So I said:

DUDE.  I cannot deal when someone has to go to the bathroom.  It is impossible to tell you how panicked I get.  It’s like I have to go FOR them.  This person HAS TO PEE.  I'm like, "People, out of the way!  My friend needs the bathroom!  MAKE A HOLE!"

And maybe this comes from when I wet myself in my favorite dress in first grade because my teacher wouldn't let me go?... Or when I was on a Brownie trip (precursor to Girl Scouts) to Boston and I had to go in a Tupperware cup on a public bus...?

Probably not.

I even have dreams about it.  Not like I have to go and I just can't find a bathroom.  Oh no.  I can find the bathroom, but I can't get in because there's some code or something to open it.  Or I find the bathroom, but the toilets themselves are such alien contraptions - the stirrups from the gyno table, you have to hang from a monkey bar, it looks like a weight machine from the gym - I can't figure out how to use it.  Or it is a roomful of people (male, female) watching me and the only place to go is right in the middle in front of everyone....

Meanwhile.

Where was I?

So about then Kaitlyn our intern spun in, bouncing in a chair and rattling on about her PhD presentation being late; a meeting in twenty minutes; and a two-hour focus group ahead of her - and then she announced:

DID I SAY - I HAVE TO PEE SO BAD I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TELL YOU!

Drew hit the floor laughing and THAT'S WHEN MY HEAD EXPLODED.

I'm also afraid of heights and ocean liners.  Yeah, I'm not well.