pee decree

The day Cowboy told me how to pee was the day I told him to curl his hair and dress in drag.

Seriously dude. Some places you just don’t go.

It all started like this:

I met up with Cowboy and some of his pals to do the traditional girl duty: Cheering on the small town softball-playing boys. Whoopie.

And when I say small town, I’m talking everyone stares because they can't figure out who I'm related to. And to add insult to injury, cell phones don’t work.

In such an awkward situation, it's customary to whip out a mobile and text.

The act of texting is like saying “Hey look, I have friends,” thereby giving the illusion of cool. But in a valley so cut off, my cell phone doesn’t even display the time of day. I’m pretty sure if I pretended to text, they’d ship me off to the dam where teens skinny dip and forbid I ever return.

And those are germs far worse than any swine flu.

Naturally, I attended the game more for the gossip and Budweiser than the game itself. But every now and then, however, I yelped helpful hints like “throw the ball” and “run faster."

Three games, 21 innings and one too many beers later, we were on the road to Cowboy’s family homestead: a lovely two-story with a big kitchen and toilets that flush. I hadn't drank that many beers, but I hadn't broken the seal either. The farm's oasis awaited me.

Full disclosure: the softball diamond had a porta potty. I admit it. But who wants to pee in a hole when a real toilet with tissue paper and anti-bacterial hand soap are just a hop, skip and 7 miles of gravel road away?

If you have to go so bad, I’ll just pull over, Cowboy said.

Do and I swear to god, these camo seat covers will need replacing, I said. If not from my urine, then from the stain of your blood.

It’s not that big of a deal. No one will come by, he said, steering towards the shoulder.

Drive this truck or I will drive it for you. And my feet don't reach the pedals, I said, wondering if public urination is an A misdemeanor or C felony and if either is worse than aggravated assault.

Yes, passing motorists would have, quite literally, scared the piss out of me. But it wasn’t even that. SO MANY MANY things are wrong with the tall-grass tinkle.

No. 1: I don’t want ANYONE to see me pee, much less someone like Cowboy who I hope sees me as pretty and attractive and super-duper suave. I don’t even let Samantha see such an act, and that girl poses for pictures with the deer she shot. And then she eats its meat. For breakfast. In fact, if I had it my way, I’d never let people know I peed at all. I’m a lady. Ladies don’t pee, or get stuck in snow or rip the crotch of their pants. Not if they expect boys in bars to buy them drinks.

No. 2: There’s an art to the woman’s wheat-field whizz, but I don’t know it. And since he’s not a girl, neither does Cowboy. Had I attempted, I’d have drenched my clothes in bodily fluids and no one likes a pants pee-er. If I’m going to be that humiliated, why don’t I just grab a church pew on Christmas morning, do my business and see if anyone mistakes the odor for frankincense and myrrh? At least then it'd be worth it.

No. 3: insects near my private areas are almost as horrifying as wearing black socks with brown shoes.

Seriously, he said, you’ve got to learn to compromise.

COMPROMISE. Seriously? You’re telling me, the girl who used to get her nails done every other week and hair highlighted every other month, to COMPROMISE?? Like I’m turning you all city without the care and decency to do one thing country? You're kidding...

Elaborate, he said.

Perhaps you've already forgotten but... Who TOUCHED a minnow last weekend? And who TORE A TICK off her own back? Who came FACE-TO-FACE WITH DEATH by the name of a .22 caliber rifle and lived to tell about it?

Let me ask you, I said, Where, in the manual of all things “this-is-how-dating-works,” does it say you are allowed to tell me when, where and how often to pee? Because I’ve read “Dating for Dummies” Vol. 1 and THAT wasn’t in there. I may have discarded enough of my city-ness to garden the country way, fish the country way and hell, you've got a farmer’s tan and I don't even make fun of you. To your face.

But I draw the line at plumbing fixtures.

The softball team lost it's game that night. But as for me, I marked a "V" in the victory column.