June 23, 2009

7:55 AM PST Well after much preparation the day has finally arrived! There are the last minute decisions on one bag or two to check, can I live without this, I really want to take my own pillow & blanky, do I really want to carry this? Will the plane be on time? Will my luggage arrive when I do? Why are we flying at night? What adventures await us in just 24 hours? And the most important question on my mind..."Will there be frogs!!" Woohooo!!!

12-24-15

Recently I was told that in order to release traumatic feelings that plague you they must be faced head on.  So in the spirt of that advice I have written this blurb.  Fear not, it is not a "touchy-feely" book. :) 
This is the life and times of....an ordinary person?!

Chinese Bathrooms - Oi!  If you have done any traveling to less developed areas, and by that I mean places that don't have the standard porcelin throne, the bowl, the can, the loo, the head, the john...the toilet but rather has a hole in the ground, sometimes a metal pan like basin in the floor. 
While no issue for a man having to go number 1, quite a different story for the female population not trained in the ways of going number 1 while standing nor in the art of being able to aim the streams direction. 

That mortifying experience that colors my cheeks and makes my eyes roll and wish for an eraser to remove the memory is connected with the above subject.


                                                     
The year - 2009, the place - Beijing China, the title "I gotta go pee!"  Our tour bus arrived as some fancy art/jewelry combo palace (marble, ornate glass doors, very fancy smancy).  I stood in line hoping that this bathroom would be a "western" style with with an actual toilet.  Much to my dismay it was pan in the floor.


Since I really, really had to go I dropped my pants and squatted down.  I completely missed the hole.  There was a river that was threatening to run right out the stall.  Fortunately in this stall there was toilet paper, not something that can be said of very place.  Sopping up the liquid with great effort, shame and humiliation at having to now exit the stall, hope no-one I knew was in line and exiting stage right after washing my hands as quickly and invisibily as possible for a nearly 6' female surrounded by a population of 5' people, yeah no sweat-NOT!

Honestly, I'm not sure I wasn't using it backwards!  How I wish that there was a "How to" brochure included in the travel packet.  Or "Here is a product you may wish to consider purchasing before you go to a country with holes in the ground for bathrooms" - ok that title is a little bit long. 

Recently I came across a product-a woman's salvation, a beacon in the night, a light at the end of the tunnel...what is it you want to know?  It is  a "portable female urinal"... .... ... I am allowing that long pause for effect, to let it sink in that this may be the SINGLE most important discovery to mankind, or rather womankind.  A portable, female, urinal.  Sheer genious!

While looking at pictures of these marvels of engineering I must admit that it seems to me that some of them appear to have been designed upside down.  Some shown are not the truly "portable" ones, and exactly how the mechanics of these would work is a bit lost on me and it seems that one would have to be a bit of a contortionist to use them.
  

The names for some of these creations are in themselves ingenious.  (Others are just a bit on the nose and could use with some marketing spin-after all "Female portable urinal", really?)  They should take a lesson from these names:  "TravelJane", "LittleJohn", "SheWee", "GoGirl" -this one is my favorite, name I mean since I have to admit I have only just ordered a couple of these products as it seems like a must have.)

  Again, some of the descriptions of the products give pause as to how exactly they work.  The "TravelJane" and its brother the "TravelJohn", which advertises being usable for the whole family (which begs to question why then would there be a need for a "TravelJane" if "TravelJohn" can take care of all your needs), claims to turn your #1 quickly and completely into an odorless, spill proof-gel that is non-toxic and waste disposal safe.  Hmmm.

I have gotten a bit off track from the original purpose of writing about this subject.  Do I feel better having written it?  Less embarassed about my China bathroom debacle???  I have to admit with researching some material and finding that I am not alone in having had a bad hole-in-the-floor experience and not making a hole-in-one that...NO!!!!I AM ORDERING A WAREHOUSE FULL OF THE PORTABLE FEMALE URINALS, SHEWEE, GOGIRL, LITTLEJANE OR JOHNS AND WILL NEVER HAVE TO FACE THIS ISSUE AND SHAME AGAIN!!!  And I may tell my shrink, who prefers to be called an "expander of minds" and not a shrink, of my story and that I posted it online for all the world to see (although I tucked it at the very beginning of my blog and if you by chance happened to find it - I hope it helped you to know you are not alone. :)