There is a very distinctive sound coming from the kitchen on the floor above me. It is the sound of a grown man who is, as my father used to say, “pissing like a goddamned racehorse.” Except Mark is sitting here with me and there is no reason I can imagine for any other grown man to be in our house at the moment, much less pissing in our kitchen.
Mark and I listen together.
Definitely the sound of pissing.
Not so long ago, Mark and I had a couple over for dinner, and after dinner we are all hanging out in our living room talking. A few beers, some laughter, a little more talking . . . and then a man who shall remain nameless but to whom I am married excuses himself and walks from the living room to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. The bathroom is not visible from the living room, so I guess the man who shall remain nameless but to whom I am married figures that there is no real urgency about shutting the bathroom door. The girls are sleeping, and the rest of us are safely down in the living room talking.
Well, we would have been talking . . . we had been talking . . . but then there is a small pause in the conversation, into which falls the very clear sound of racehorse-pissing from above.
PISSSSSSSS . . .
We try to keep talking, but it seems like every time we start saying something, the pissing interrupts us.
“So how did your son like . . .”
PISSSSSSSSS . . .
I wait until it seems like he is done, avoiding eye contact with the couple sitting across from me. A few beats of silence, “So you guys are thinking of going to the museum tomor . . .”
PISSSSSSS . . . My words die off as the couple’s eyes shoot upward and then come back to rest on my face.
The husband takes a sip of his beer and says, “Yes, we were thinking of doing that and then having . . . “
PISSSSSSSSS . . .
The wife chokes back a giggle.
PISSSSSS . . .
I cough to cover my own laughter.
Seriously, anonymous pissing man to whom I am married? Seriou . . .
PISSSSSSS . . .
Alright, so now there is really no way for the three of us to talk without breaking into hysterical laughter, and none of us wants to do that. We are grown-ups and we are mature. Yes, we have had a few beers, but we are not children, for heaven’s sake. The three of us stare into the conversational space and say nothing, refusing to meet one another’s eyes.
PISSSSS . . .
Silence.
Maybe he’s done?
“You guys given any thought to . . .”
PISSSSS . . .
PISSS . . .
“Want me to get you another . . .”
PISS . . .
PISS . . .
A few beats of complete and utter silence and then . . .
Pisssss. . .
Silence.
OK, there is no way that man has any more liquid to expel. I lean forward, “You guys want some chips? I have some . . .”
Piss . . .
Pisss . . .
ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NAMELESS HUSBAND?
Piss.
We wait, certain that more is to come and afraid to speak. We strain our ears into the silence; we are trying so hard to hear that when the toilet flushes, it is the biggest and most startling watery sound we have perhaps ever heard, and the three of us lean back in our seats and breathe deeply to quell our tipsy hysteria.
Mark walks into the room and stares at us, “What?”
Where was I?
Yes . . . PISSSSSS . . . the sound coming from the kitchen above where I sit is the sound of Mark beer-pissing in the bathroom above me with the door open.
But wait. There is another sound.
The sound of little-girl giggling . . . high and delighted and silly . . . hee hee hee!
PISSSSSSS hee hee hee PISSSSSSSS hee hee hee PISSSSSS hee hee hee!
Huh.
Up the stairs I go.
Into the kitchen, where I find Kallan pushing the water-dispenser button on the refrigerator and then allowing the stream of water to shoot in an arc out into the kitchen, where she is catching it in a large plastic cup.
PISSSSSSS hee hee hee PISSSSSSSS hee hee hee PISSSSSS hee hee hee!
She turns to smile at me, “Look what I can do! There’s no need to hold the cup anywhere near the refrigerator; I can catch the water way over here!”
She dumps out the cup and then stands with the cup held low to the floor and perhaps two feet in front of the refrigerator as she reaches to push the button.
PISSSSSSS hee hee hee PISSSSSSSS hee hee hee PISSSSSS hee hee hee!
I reach to pat her on the head, “I just could not be more proud, Kallan. Just think, any standing pee-ers ever need to pee in a cup, you’ll be all ready with the catch! A very useful skill to have.”
She is delighted, “YEAH! Wait . . . what did you say?”
I keep talking, “Big money in urine collection. Hard to find a good catcher. Your future is golden!”
She looks in her cup, “Ewwwwww.”
Maj interrupts us, racing into the room in a panic, holding her damp stained shirt away from her body, “Long the Frog peed on me! I was holding him and he just got all squatty and determined and he shot a giant stream of pee all over my shirt! He did this on purpose! I am covered in malicious Long frog pee!”
Kallan holds out her cup, “Want a drink, Maj? It’s cool and refreshing.”
Maj is puzzled, “No, I don’t want a drink of water. I need to take this shirt off and get cleaned up. Look at all this malicious Long frog pee! I am going to have a talk with that amphibious young man.” She yells up the stairs toward her bedroom, where her frogs live, “Yes, we are going to have a talk, young Long man, because this is not how you repay the Maj for all of her kindnesses!”
Kallan is still hopeful, “You sure you don’t want a drink?”
Maj is suspicious, “OK, now you’ve offered me that drink twice for no good reason. Did you pee in it or something?”
Kallan looks at me incredulously, but speaks soothingly to her sister, “No, I just love you and want to offer you refreshment.”
Maj stares at her sister, “Yeah. Right.”
Mark walks through the kitchen and stops to squirt some hand sanitizer onto his hands from the bottle we keep next to the kitchen sink. Except the bottle is clogged, and so he gives it an extra hard pump to break the clog. The clog breaks free along with a sudden mis-aimed stream of hand-sanitizing gel that flies past Mark’s hands and onto the lower front of his shirt and the crotch area of his shorts.
The girls and I burst into laughter.
So now we have . . .
One pee catcher who is also a pee pusher.
One maliciously Long frog peed girl.
One beer-drinking man who shall remain nameless who pisses like a racehorse and who should know better than to piss with the bathroom door open.
And one man who appears to have pissed himself and is now pissed.
I am the only normal unpeed one here!
That thought makes me laugh hysterically.
Oops.
Damn it.
