Urinelle

I came home last night in somewhat of an exhausted stupor. I was working at the restaurant until around 10:30 pm, had smoked myself silly and spent a good forty-five minutes on the bus to get home. When I finally got to my apartment it was about 11:15 and my roommate's cocktail party was still underway, although most of the guests had left at this point. The first thing I had to do was pee. After waiting for a few people to use the facilities, I dragged my dazed self into the bathroom where I couldn't help but notice something quite strange on top of the toilet. Was I really looking at what I thought I was? All I could see was a bunch of pictures of a woman using some sort of device to pee standing up. Essentially, some entrepreneur finally understood that "penis envy" is real and materialized this Freudian concept into: "Urinelle, the urinating tube for women."

While I thought the product was ingenious, I couldn't help but wonder what it was doing on top of our toilet. Were these really put out here for our guests to use? I read the description of the product and it states, "Urinelle enables women to urinate in a standing position: easily, safely and hygienically. Handy when, for example, you are out of the house where hygiene is often lacking." Is our toilet really that unhygienic that our guests would actually want to use this?

I asked my roommate about it today and she told me that it represented an inside joke between her and some of her friends. She told the story of why the urinating tube was funny (other than all the obvious reasons).

"We were eating dinner and Susie's husband Jeremy was the only man at the table. He mentioned how when it snowed outside, he and his guy friends would go outside and try to write their full names in the snow with their pee. Only, he could never finish his entire last name. He would only get up to Schmee. And that's how he ended up with that as his nickname. All of us girls were jealous, talking about how we wished we could do that too. Finally, one of the girls found this product online used to help women pee standing up and she bought all of us a packet of them. So, I put them out as a joke and kind of as a dare to see if we could get anyone to use them."

I inquired, "Have you tried it? Has anyone?"

"No, no one's used them as of yet. They are just a joke."

I bet that woman since the age of time have wished they could pee standing up and now here is this product that helps us accomplish that goal, yet no one has stepped up to the challenge. Maybe it's because urinelle is made out of this kind of durable paper and the thought of holding it down there and potentially getting pee all over your hands is a bit frightening. Or, maybe it's actually a popular product in the Netherlands, where they are made. And, I wonder, do you still have to wipe after using urinelle? Plus, at $6.85 per 7 pack they aren't exactly affordable. It's already expensive enough being a women in this society, need we add on another cost?

I guess for now the squat will have to do for most of us women who aren't fortunate or gutsy enough to try urinelle. A friend of mine the other day said that some women actually have trained themselves how to pee standing up. I think it might be that their urethras are made especially for this skill, some kind of a natural design advantage that they have. Possibly these women are the ancestors of nomadic groups that needed to pee standing up while they went on long walking journeys from place to place.

If you think about it, it is kind of interesting how different cultures use the bathroom. In Japan, for example, women squat over a ceramic hole in the ground. It's just a different kind of toilet. When my family lived in Japan, I remember having to learn how to use this type of toilet properly. At first, every time I had to go I took off my pants and my underwear, I was afraid of getting pee on my pants. Once, I actually dropped my underwear in the toilet in the process of trying to use the bathroom. That really sucked. With a little time and a lot of practice, I finally mastered the art of this form of peeing.

I actually think that squatting over a hole is easier than trying to squat over an American sitting toilet. At least the hole in the ground is made to be squatted over whereas the American toilet is made for sitting. Only thing is with all the germs out there, you can't actually sit on the public toilet without feeling icky and gross all over. I personally am a fan of the toilet seat cover. Something about that thin layer of paper protection gives me the comfort of mind to sit on the toilet. I recently did this in a public restroom with my friend in the same stall. "Gross," she exclaimed, "Why don't you just squat over the toilet?"

"Because it's really uncomfortable and that's what these paper things are made for." I replied in my defense.

She couldn't believe that I would actually sit on the toilet. Seriously, what the fuck? Why would we make a toilet for sitting on when we can't even sit on it? I think the Japanese have got it right and at least the Dutch have come up with an expensive ass alternative to the discomfort of squatting over a toilet (it seriously is a strain on your thigh muscles) in the product of urinelle. Maybe one of these days I'll give it a try and see how it goes. Or maybe not.