It started long before this - the discomfort, the increased need to go, the inability to go. That got worse and worse over the succeeding years, but the first 'headline' event was in the summer of 2013. That's when it all came out in the open. Before then I'd had to pee far too regularly and more urgently than others - friends and family. This time however it was on a new level and I really should have taken heed and taken stock. Instead I let it go on for six more years - typical bloody man.
The wedding of a wealthy friend. A country house in Wiltshire. The theme of gangsters & molls (ffs!).
No expense spared - seemingly. I was collected from Bristol airport by one of numerous chauffeurs hired for the day. Sun splitting the sky. Champagne on the lawn on arrival. Hard to take it all in. Just beautiful. Idyllic.
A huge white marquee erected in the picture postcard oak tree-dotted-field beyond the rose beds and manicured borders. Quintessentially English rolling countryside. A privilege to have been invited. Wouldn't be anywhere else.
Drinks and introductions over a few jovial games of croquet on a real croquet lawn. Then a call to assemble.
It was a long walk to the marquee, perhaps 3 minutes. I made my way past the glamping tent area, hay bales and fire pits, outdoor games areas buzzing with frolicking kids in colourful summer oufits. It was going to be a very good day - a day to remember.
In the marquee that's filling up with guests I find my table. As I do so I'm talking to some bright-young-thing London artist type who thinks the future of art is going to be computer generated blah blah blah.
Just as I sit down I need a pee. I've drunk 2 or 3 or 4 glasses of champagne in the past hour so nothing unusual about that, but the suddeness is. No warning, no discomfort or dull pain - I just HAVE TO PEE RIGHT NOW - NOW - NOOOW! But the bright young artist thing won't give me the damned pause in conversation I need to excuse myself politely. He just goes on and on talking until I just can't go on listening. I'm going to piss myself. I turn and run out of the tent leaving him in mid sentence - like a scene in a trashy movie. I've never done that to anyone before and now I'm going to have to come back and sit with him for the length of the dinner. This isn't of any concern at all to me right now though.
My only concern is - WHERE THE FECK ARE THE DAMN PORTALOOS!? I hadn't seen any on my way to the marquee so now I have to locate them VERY PISSING FAST!
None in sight though. I've already pissed a little bit in my pants. The rest isn't going to wait much longer. As I look around for a simple fucking chemical loo the searing pain is already bending every muscle in my body downwards and inwards towards that peppercorn size bladder exit and the detrusor muscles that hold it shut. It is all I can do not to fold up on the ground and scream in agony at passing feet. A minute ago I'd been at a wedding. Now I'm in a world of uncontrollable excruciating pain and internal primal screaming. In the world I've just left people still pass by on their jolly way in and out of the marquee. Serving staff carry trays of drinks from the bar as I stand there consumed in agony by a white hot bladder from hell.
I run around the back of the marquee to where the catering trucks are. Lots of people busily at work but no loos and nowhere to go without being seen - that consideration has never left me.
A hundred and fifty guests in a tent in the middle of a field drinking like fish and not a single pissoir to be had! How could my friend have come up short in this way? Christ's sake people are you all bladderless!? is it just me that needs to pee here!? Turns out the groom had forgotten about loos. He'd ticked off on fire pits and hay bales, bunting and festoon lights but not anywhere to piss out the booze we're going to be guzzling like there's no tomorrow!
I turn and head for the main house several minutes walk away but I am never going to make it. I can hardly put one leg in front of the other with the cramping pain. I'm pissing cold sweat out of my pores. It's very hot so how that's even possible I don't know. A couple of far too exhuberant kids ask me to play hide and seek with them. I don't even answer. I can't. I am in a delirium. Perhaps the effect of ignoring them will change the course of their lives in some small way - their faith in humanity or something. I couldn't care less. Nature is calling me and it's calling like a cat on a hot tin roof.
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Then in mid stride my bladder does what bladders and dams do under pressure. It opens the floodgates and rapidly empties itself. The pressurised flow of body temperature urine pulses in to my nether regions, fills my boxer shorts, streams down my legs soaking through my cheap white polyester 'gangster' trousers on the way before collecting copiously in my shoes. I'm still walking as I feel the trouser fabric stick to my skin like clingfilm. Then in a final act of humiliation the pee suddenly turns from hot to cold. My transition from wedding guest to urine drenched basket case is complete.
I'm twisted in pain but somehow still on the move, passing guests and smiling warmly, hoping my condition isn't that noticeable, hoping they don't see what's happening down below. It is noticeable though and of course they see.
Before I think to take my jacket off to cover my pissy pants Elizabeth passes me by. I know by her double take downward glances to my groin area that she's seen the state I'm in but she valiantly pretends not to have. To this day nothing has been said but I have no doubt she has dined out well once or twice on the story and if so I forgive her that. Who the hell wouldn't tell the story of someone pissing themself in front of you at an otherwise humdrum upper crust wedding?
After changing my trousers and drying out my only pair of shoes as best I can I rejoin the wedding party, but my mood has changed and full engagement no longer possible. I can't throw myself back in to the carefree gaiety. I'm now an outsider - an oddball - a piss artist in genteel company - mister pissy pants. I can't wait to get away, but there's still a whole day and night to get through. Nightmare.
You don't forget the first time you piss yourself. It's a very unfamiliar and troubling experience. Apart from the embarrassment there's the feeling of inadequacy, of immaturity and even helplessness. Little kids wet the bed. Then they grow up and stop. Pissing myself that day really rattled me - being so out of control of my body and experiencing so much sudden pain.
In the succeeding years I've pissed myself on other occasions. It has been an inevitable result of my untreated condition. Of course I've desperately tried not to, the physical strain of which has caused literally unbearable pain - a deterioration in my condition to the point where pissing myself would have been a desirable and healthier alternative. More about that in an upcoming post.
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