One of the best things about being a bloke is having the ability to take a leak standing up. Yes, I know women now have the she-wee, but it is not the same, I have tried it.

The ingenuity of man has taken this basic physical ability and used it to develop the most space saving urinals imaginable.  I am talking of course about those urinals that are essentially long silver walls with a drip tray below waist height.  There is no personal space in such an area, you can literally be touching the people on either side of you whilst trying to take a whizz.  I do not suffer from stage fright, but if I did, that would be hell.

Of course, this means that the queue for the gents is generally smaller than for the ladies, which is nice, but we do still have to queue.  At least until a gap appears, which we then fight our way into.

The gap that opened up for me was pretty central, and I took position trying not to knock the guys either side of me and throw them off their aim.

I was pissing almost straight down the drain whilst the piss from three men to my left, and three men to my right sloshed it’s way to the drain right in front of me.

That’s when I noticed it.  A bright orange stream of piss from the right, slowly diluted before gushing down the drain.  Now, there are certain places on earth where starting a conversation is frowned upon, you might be sat upon a jury, at 11am on 11th November, or during a Best Man’s speech.  But none is worse than whilst taking a piss next to a stranger.  Which is why I look back with regret about what happened next.

“Someone’s got a New Year’s resolution to take Berocca then?” I offered.

There was a chuckle. Then another.

“Thank fuck, I thought my girlfriend was trying to poison me!” was the response from the end of the line.

There was further chuckling.  A voice then chirped up from the other end of the urinal.

“I don’t believe in all that shit.  They just want your money. It’s all bollocks.”

The silence resumed, but with a few extra notches of awkwardness as no-one wanted to debate the relative merits of branded vitamin supplements with the potentially mentally unstable gentleman at the other end of our line.

I finished, shook, zipped up and washed my hands leaving the toilet without making eye contact with anyone.  I vowed never to start a conversation at the urinal ever again.

berroca · toilets · urinal