You know the feeling that you get after you’ve had a few drinks at a bar and really have to piss but it seems like nowhere is open/cops are watching every alleyway or place where you can otherwise safely loosen your fly and not be registered as a sex offender/all stores have a sign that bathrooms are for customers only? Imagine that times a thousand.
After orientation today, a group of us hit Santa Fe Ave. (a huge shopping street, like the Newbury St or Madison Ave of Buenos), looking for somewhere to take advantage of Argentina being one of many countries with a more reasonable drinking age than the US.
We found a trendy place that was a mix of café and nightclub and after the insistence of someone in our group that the upstairs (smoking section) was more trendy and cool, we went up there.
It was pretty trendy and cool. Our tables were a bunch of low coffee tables on a raised platform, with soft cushioned ottoman like stools on one side and a big booth on the other. A couple next to me was busy SUBA diving down each other’s throats. Interesting how others just view it as normal here.
Anyways, Happy Hour came along and the liter of Stella that I was sharing with a girl next to me became two for one Quilmes, Quilmes being the cheap beer that I got a few days ago at Argentinian Fried Chicken.
Before we left, me being the stingy bastard that I am, I had downed the rest of the remaining second Quilmes, didn’t want to waste it.
We got to the Subte, or subway, and waited as it passed us by several times. Imagine the Green Line after the Fourth in Boston or going into Kenmore during a Sox game, now imagine that train combined with rush hour traffic, combined with whatever the New York equivalent of a packed subway car is. Now divide the size of the car by two. Divide it by the fact that it was so crowded that people couldn’t even get off at their stop. This all equals us intimidated beyond belief and me getting a new understanding why this country has the third worse Swine Flu epidemic in the world.
My paranoia had died down by this point, because how the hell would a thief even escape? Then I felt a growing tingling sensation, and not a good tingling.
Got off the Subte and dashed to the street. The beer had worked its way through my system faster than, honestly I just ran through about ten different metaphors in my head in an attempt to be clever, but I’ll spare you the pretentiousness. I’ll just put it this way, I really had to pee.
I started running, but couldn’t deal with the pressure. Every single store said “Banos por patrones solamente” aka if I wasn’t buying something, not relieving my pain there. I counted my money, only had a few coins, which are necessary for the buses and are almost in no circulation. Earlier in the day, several newspaper men refused to make change so I could get coins. Ironically, the opposite of the penny here.
In Amherst, I have a tucked away corner, behind some fencing that blocks an electric box and the back entrance to a pizza shop, where I can run in case of emergency. No such place here. Last thing I wanted was to be deported for peeing in public.
The pain was getting worse. I spotted a hospital near my house, than the site of a new condo development on my street, and damned the pain, I started running. I ran, I had nothing on my mind except the lyrics of “Shelter From the Storm” repeating through my head. Might have started singing too.
I then passed my street, doubled back, went through the lobby, rode the elevator up, and found myself confronted with my arch nemesis, putting my key into the lock.
Argentinean locks look like old timey medieval keys with wide prongs on each side instead of the sharp profile of an American key. There are no tumblers. You have to navigate the key through several different holes, adjusting its position in each along the way in order to align the key right. Only then can you receive entry.
It goes without saying that I suck at opening doors down here. Keys don’t open doors here; they’re only the gateway to horrible frustration.
Time was running out and I could literally feel the urine thrusting it’s way up my vas deferens, or whatever the actual channels called.
The door opened, I dashed down the hall, luckily Susana wasn’t home to witness this horrible spectacle, and made it.
Now I am confident enough in myself to say that I am not sure what happened in those few minutes. When I made it to the toilet, I started before my pants were fully down, so it goes to say that I might have pissed myself.
Earlier in the day I walked to orientation, passing through the dental district (tooth brush stores, dentists, and orthodontists in every storefront), took a tour of a posh neighborhood, had a successful Spanish oral exam, and a few other things that I would have written more about if I didn’t have this demeaning yet ridiculously funny interlude.
No comments:
Post a Comment