Da Trip Home

We did the trip home all at once. All 11 hours of it.

I would just like to state for the record that while the Western Kentucky Parkway has a McDonald's that sells super-sized drinks at the western-most end of it, it has a criminal lack of public restrooms available between there and the eastern-most end of it.

About half an hour after we left said McDonald's, I realized I was going to have some serious bladder issues and began looking for exits. The first one we came to had two service stations. Both of them were not only closed, but were out of business, abandoned and had locked restrooms. The only other option at that exit was a greasy-spoon restaurant that I didn't relish having to use, so I drove on.

This was a mistake.

After another fifteen minutes without a single exit I was becoming crazed from urine poisoning. And while Kentucky may be nice, clean, and green, they could use some help repairing the gaping, bladder-jarring potholes in their parkway system. Then we saw a sign indicating the next port of call was over 28 miles down the line. Sure, there might be an exit or two between me and there, but I wasn't going to risk a rupture to find out. I'm a charter member of the Manly Bladder Club and all, but even the manliest bladder can only take so much and I'd drank two 20 oz cups of a mild diuretic.

I therefore opted to use my super-sized drink cup in a manner for which it had not been intended. This was tricky to do while driving at 75 mph, to say the least, and involved the use of cruise-control and my wife steering while I concentrated on other matters. It was also only a stop-gap measure, though, due in large part to the laws of fluid dynamics with a kinked hose, not to mention the limited volume of the cup itself, so even after two such sessions I was unable to finish. Sure, the pressure was not as great, but there was plenty more fluid on its way to fill the void.

The fifteen minute period that followed brought me nigh unto madness. Between the potholes and the sounds of sloshing from my 20 oz. Tidy-Bowl and the continued desperate search for an exit with facilities I was nearly certifiable.

"Ohhh it hurrrrts," I said.

The only thing that kept me going was the notion that I might spy a Kentucky highway planning commissioner standing beside the road at whom I could lob my urine grenade. Alas, none appeared.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we found an exit with a service station where I could divest myself of my piss-filled cup and my remaining piss. I have to say that the guy who stepped out of the one-toilet men's restroom just as I reached it is a far luckier man than he will ever know.