A call of nature occurred as I was driving on the small state highway between my folks’ house and the interstate. It’s mostly farm country, but you pass through one or two towns large enough to have a gas station. Back then, the bathrooms were locked up and you had to go inside to get the key. And everything closed at 10 pm; if it was later than that, you were out of luck. That was my situation, one growing ever more dire. Fearing the untimely appearance of a state trooper,
I turned off on a smaller road to take a quick whiz. It was pitch dark
and I figured if I was careful, no one would be the wiser:
STOPPING TO PEE
ON A MOONLESS NIGHT
Whose fields these are I do not know
It doesn’t really matter though
My bladder has begun to twitch;
without relief, it might explode
On a county road as dark as pitch,
I brake just inches from the ditch
Hop out and feel my way around
then slide my jeans below my hips
Against the chrome, I hunker down
A sizzling jet-stream hits the ground
and thunders on non-stop until…
Is that a snake? That hissing sound?
Astonished by my speed and skill,
I launch myself right off the grille
and activate a motion light
whose million watts upon me spill
As jeans and bum I re-unite,
I wonder if some farmer might
have seen the moon that moonless night
have seen the moon that moonless night
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JUST JOAN 42 
Lol… that is hilarious
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Howdy, Jason. Welcome to JJ42, where poetry is fun and irreverent and a reflection of real life. A few weeks ago, I blogged about unwittingly ending up at the wrong family reunion (there were several going on at the state park that day). Last month, I featured a poem describing an ongoing battle with a stubborn booger. Hope you’ll stay tuned. 🙂
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I’m wondering if that snake was pissed off or pissed on.
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Hey Tippy! I don’t even know if there WAS a snake, let alone one close enough to get pissed on. Hearing that “Ssssssss” off in the field was enough to shift me into fight or flight mode. Yikes! 🙂
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Oh my goodness, Joan, I would have been too scared to get out of the car on one of those roads alone at night. If I even had the courage, I would have also imagined a snake, Bigfoot or even the Jersey Devil. I wonder if the farmer also had recording devices when the lights went on, LOL. Frost would love this one as do I 😀
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I wasn’t exactly Zen about it, but when you gotta go, you GOTTA GO. Nowadays, I carry a big cup and TP in the car for such emergencies. Good Lord, Lana, I hadn’t even considered that the motion light might have tripped a recorder! Thank heavens this was before the advent of YouTube. Poor Robert Frost is probably rolling over in his grave at this perversion of his masterpiece. 🙂
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Yes that’s right, now there are cameras everywhere, even out in the boonies!
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Field? Front yard? What’s the difference, right?
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It was a field, Snoozin, I swear. I stopped so close to the ditch I about fell in it as I Helen-Kellered my way around the front end of the car. The motion light was mounted on a telephone pole at a farm house about 200 yards away on the other side of the road, and about the same wattage as the kind they use for night games on athletic fields. Yikes! 🙂
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very funny…has happened to me many times!!
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Thanks, Dianne. Many times??? Once was enough for me! Urinating au naturel is a last resort. I don’t even like outhouse-style toilets at primitive rest areas; it’s unnerving to start peeing and not hear the stream hit the bottom for a few seconds. Thanks for the visit and comment. 🙂
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On a supported mountain bike tour in Canyonlands National Park, our guide told us that if you don’t make eye contact, you are not seen. It’s a comforting delusion when nature calls at inopportune times.
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Hey, Judy, is that sort of like when kids cover their eyes and believe if they can’t see something, it can’t see them? Once the motion light went on, the snake, the farmer, and any other interested party couldn’t have missed the free show. Out in the real wild, you have no choice. When we hiked Katahdin, there were no toilets beyond the first mile. You had to take a whiz off the beaten path, and pray you didn’t need the little shovel in your backpack. 🙂
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Hehehehe! You are too funny and very creative!! I loved the poem! As a child (and as an adult) my bladder was small with a low capacity. I had to “christen” Mammoth Cave when my Father thought a 4 hour tour was the right thing to do with 3 young girls, their mother and grandmother in tow. Everyone but me managed to hold on until the “rest stop” The lights would go out as the tour passed certain points and let me tell you it is DARK! I never peed so fast…
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