There are rules you know.
It’s just what you do.
Some dudes though? Some dudes just don’t.
What is wrong with them?
Some humans are a mystery, wrapped in an embellishment holding onto a sausage.
Dear reader, dudes can be glorious, smart and disciplined.
Then?
Then there are the urinal talkers.
Women, you may fear a stalker, but for a dude, there can be nothing worse than a urinal talker.
This plague I first encountered as a child watching hockey games.
As a young boy I encountered horrors at the Metro centre - bald and flush faced men reeking of beer fishing for their penises beneath bulging beer bellies all while belching and beginning the stream with a loogie well horked.
You see dear reader, there’s a ritual, a piss ritual. This piss ritual takes place as dudes shoulder up in hockey rinks: Unzip, hork, produce the sausage, spit, piss, sigh, shake, zip, spit, flush, leave.
Gross eh?
Yeah, the entire procedure of mass public pissing is bad enough - so much so that at hockey games my son and I used to leave the rink, cross the street and piss in behind the Red Cross building.
But, there is one thing that makes pissing worse.
You see, dear reader, I have recently led not one, but two multi day tours of the Maritimes. I’ve loved my guests. They’ve loved me. I love being a tour director.
At the same time, I’m responsible for a lot of people. They want my attention. Whether to know where we’re going next or just to have a chance to swap stories, a tour director’s time is never his own.
Most days, I’d struggle to eat two bites between paperwork, problem-solving, or conversations.
I expected that.
But piss breaks?
C’mon.
There are rules people: Take out your cock, do the rituals. Stare straight ahead against unyielding tiles. Pretend the dude next to you isn’t there. Try to relax and wait for the whole ordeal to end.
It’s just what you do.
Right?
It’s what you’re supposed to do anyway.
Eyes forward, mouth shut. Pretend things smell like spruce trees.
On tour though I encountered some men so excited to share a joke, tell a story or get information, they… they…
They violated this sacred rule.
What’s worse, they even turned to speak with me while… in process.
I mean, they were looking at me, trying to make eye contact.
Dear reader, whether riding bikes and horses or shooting pucks there is one truth to biomechanics: ACTION FOLLOWS THE EYES.
So as soon as dude starts talking to me he’s ignoring the task in his hand and trying to be ‘polite’ and make eye contact.
And he’s asking me tough questions about where supper is going to be and what’s on the menu.
What’s on the menu? All I can think about are my shoes!
I’m trying to be polite. It’s my job to be polite. But how do I do it? How do tell this man, standing there with his drippy dick in his hand what he’s having for dinner?
Do I not deserve just a moments peace?
Or do I go all in and turn to him?
Do I turn to him while trying to keep the apple juice in the can?
Or,
Do I let the action follow the eyes and send him back to the bus with wet feet?
Or,
Do I just stare at the tiles and pretend I can’t hear?
What would you do?
I had to do something, make a choice, open myself to a strange new world of dripping dick discussions or set a boundary.
Attempting to do both at the same time, I turned to him to set a boundary. It landed as expected.
We took soggy steps back to the bus as we left our meeting without saying a word.
It’s just what you do.
