If you follow my column religiously (as most people do), you know that I take everything seriously. Everything. But I haven't even scratched the surface of the issues that should be at the forefront of our generation's minds, the most important and serious considerations that we have to face in order to grow up. Namely, why do civilized human beings have absolutely no manners when it comes to where and upon what they are allowed to piss? And why do I always inexplicably become the victim of these rogue urinators?
I'm serious right now. It happens to me on an unreasonably regular basis. Last week marked the third time in my life when some nameless offender decided that his or her piss should be my business too. To be honest, I prefer people that think their urine is my business to those socially helpless folks who think I want to hear about their bowel movements / their problems with gas in the library / their rightful place in front of me in the Collis stir-fry line. Stop pretending we both know you were getting soup. But once your bladder waste comes into contact with my body or my belongings, that's when my brain really starts screaming at you and I've got something a little harsher to say than "Oh, yeah, sorry, I thought you ordered."
I first observed this phenomenon at age 16. Let me set the scene for you: Atlanta's Music Midtown, an annual outdoor music festival. I was at the Killers concert (first mistake), minding my own damn business, when I suddenly felt something warm and wet on the back of my legs. It had been a rainy day, so at first it didn't register as "something really not normal." Then I turned around. The sight I beheld is permanently burned into my brain: This downright obese guy, probably 6'4", with his mouth open and his eyes glazed over as if to say "fraaaaaaaaaat," a backwards cap on and, most importantly, his. Dick. Hanging. Out. He was still peeing, but I had by this time managed to get out of the way of the stream. I have no way to describe what happened next except that something broke in my brain and I went off on him Lohan-style. Liberal use of "the f*ck word," a lot of in-his-face screaming, a lot of questioning whether he was in fact a barnyard animal. The funniest part was that he kept gesturing to this young couple next to him both of whom looked terrified and confused as if he thought he could convince me it was actually their urine dripping down my knee-pits, when, again, his genitals were visible.
Scenario 2: Freshman Orientation. Pretty much an extended, drunken mess that I like to call "Woooo! No parents!" I get it. Shit's real wild: We're in Hanover and we have access to cheap beer. This is what Kanye meant by "the good life," I'm sure. But that doesn't mean I want to discover a trash can full of someone else's pee, following a three-day period of continuously smelling something strange in my room without knowing the source. So disgusting. This is how I learned the lesson to lock my bedroom door while sleeping.
Scenario 3: Okay, so after those first two incidents, I was fully willing to chalk it up to mere coincidence. That could happen to anyone, right? And freshmen are morons, my bedroom was right by the bathroom and everyone needs an absurd "welcome to college" experience. Certainly this wouldn't keep happening to me, right? Wrong. Take scenario 2, rinse and repeat, and that's what happened to me AGAIN last week. Even though I am now a senior, living with my sorority sisters, in the INNER ROOM of a two-room double, which you can only access by walking 10 feet down the hall PAST A BATHROOM. This must be intentional. This is unreal.
There are only a few possible explanations for this:
1) I'm cursed by witches. Since it is a well-documented fact that curses come in threes, this is my primary guess. However, usually my curses are preceded by bad omens like dead animals in unexpected places (witches are kind of like house cats) or dreams about snakes or Carrot Top. Each of these attacks was totally out of the blue. Witches also don't typically spread their curses over multiple years, but you never know. Maybe they've been busy trying to get Joan Rivers to stop blowing their cover.
2) It's all part of God's plan. I just like to say this in any given situation. "Kathleen, why did you skip your 2A to go eat at the West Leb KFC? We had a midterm." All part of God's plan. "I don't think it's healthy to drink six vials of 5 Hour Energy in one day." Then why did God put six of them in my life? Don't have time to talk to your friend who is going through a serious heartbreak? Tell them God wants you to play Tetris instead. This is really just the throwaway explanation for anything and everything inexcusable, including emptying your bladder on another human being once you are over the age of three.
3) My enemy list found out about my enemy list. Otherwise known as "karma," this explanation is the one that makes me the most uneasy. I've been keeping this list since ninth grade, when I first became an asshole. Pretty much everyone on the list has a certain combination of traits in common taking themselves way too seriously, having no sense of humor and thinking they're awesome when really they are awkward and have no friends. All of these personality defects also make them the most likely candidates to get truly infuriated if they found out about me, their #1 silent hater. So infuriated that they would be, quite literally, pissed off. However, I'd bet all of my teeth that ol' drunk fat dude has never met any of my enemies and was not acting upon their orders. So that's out.
At this point in my life, there is really only one course of action left: Resign myself to a life in which I periodically get pissed on. It's fine. If I've learned anything from Kim Kardashian, it's that even getting peed on is marketable if you add sex to it. So I've got that going for me.
