Complex Numbers

Nothing to Go On

I'm almost sorry to go comic on this one, because it's a shitty situation to be in. Er. So to speak.

PROMPT November 11^th

You are desperate to use the bathroom. But, you share this with several others. It's down the hall (waaaay down the hall), and it's cold despite the heat being set to the 'normal' temperature. Being an older person, your legs and ability to hold it ain't what it used to be. How do you handle this dire situation?

Depends.

In a sane world, I'd end this blog entry right there, but we live in the actual world, so I'll just give it a minute for everyone to get that joke.

There are a few benefits to being a dude, and this situation is one of them. I'm reminded of an old joke:

Adam and Eve are chilling in the Garden one day when God appears. "Hey, listen," he says. "I'm almost done here, just have two things left to Create. And I figured I'd give one to each of you."

They nod. "That's fair."

"Okay." He checks his notes. "First we have: the ability to pee standing up."

Adam jumps up and raises his hand. "Ooh! Ooh! Oh, man, that would be awesome. I could be out in the fields and, boom, just let go right where I am. Pick me, pick me!"

God looks at Eve. She shrugs.

"Okay, that one's all yours, Adam." God makes a check mark on the list. "And finally, we have: multiple orgasms."

Where I went to college, not far from where I live now, one of the greatest honors bestowed upon a fourth-year student who had great grades and participated in many different activities (e.g., not me) is to live in the original lodging at the University, rooms designed by Thomas Jefferson himself and built in the early 1800s. As these rooms predated many modern conveniences, none of them include bathrooms; one has the honor of going outside, along a covered but otherwise very open walkway, down a steep flight of stairs, and into a communal restroom/shower. And in case you don't know, it gets cold in central Virginia in the winter.

The Lawn rooms (for that is what they're called) do have sinks, but the rules forbade Lawnies from using the sink for anything apart from hand-washing and teeth-brushing, even during the cold and sleety season.

People being people, that rule was frequently broken. Hence a graffito I saw in an actual restroom near the Lawn one day while I was enrolled there:

Roses are red
Violets are pink
If you can't find a toilet
Pee in the sink

None of which is very useful to about half the population, though. Or the other half about 1/4 of the time. But keep in mind that indoor plumbing is fairly new as far as civilization is concerned, and for a lot of our history, they mostly used, essentially, buckets.

Therefore, to prepare for the situation described in the prompt, one of my priority purchases would be a bucket. I mean, if you want to get fancy about it, this thing   goes for about 20 bucks new (and I don't want to know what it sells for on the used market).

It'd be the only thing on the list, really. An actual, literal bucket list.