The Bucket

I do a lot of driving.

With five teenagers – 2 who are in college, 3 who can’t drive yet, and 5 who all swim competitively and travel to swim meets out of state, there is a lot of driving.

I love road trips, so I don’t mind doing a lot of driving.

(Unless it’s going across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel.

What I do mind is how often I have to pee.

The amount of times I have to go to the bathroom now that I’m a menopausal 55-year-old who gave birth five times is basically the same as the amount of times I had to go to the bathroom when I was pregnant.

I know where every bathroom in every grocery store and gas station within a five-mile radius of my house is.

I use the ShopRite and Costco bathrooms almost as much as I use my own.

I know which exits and which states have big gas stations and rest areas with decent bathrooms up and down the East Coast.

But sometimes that isn’t enough.

I don’t know about you guys but when I realize I have to go, I have like five minutes MAX before the floodgates let loose.

It’s zero to one hundred almost immediately.

Then there’s the woman-traveling-solo thing.

I’ve been in more than one situation on a road trip where I’ve felt really uncomfortable and either didn’t want to get out of the car or rushed to get back into it.

Then there’s the I’m-55-and-I-don’t-care-what-anyone-thinks thing. That is the best thing.

When I’m driving a substantial distance alone, I take the bucket in the car with me.

I’m lucky to drive an SUV that has lots of room and tinted windows in the back.

You really can’t see anything in the back seats.

I keep the bucket right behind the driver’s seat.

If I have to pee and I’m nowhere near a convenient bathroom or any bathroom at all, I use the bucket.

Yesterday I drove Ingrid to LaGuardia Airport.

I was going to be in the car for at least 2 1/2 hours.

I brought the bucket.

I was on my second cup of coffee before we even left the house. I knew I was going to need it.

Predictably, I used the bucket on the way home.

I pulled into a gas station parking lot not long after exiting the airport, and climbed into the back of car.

Another car pulled in right next to me and I decided I’d wait until I got home to empty the bucket.

Then I totally forgot to empty the bucket when I got home, and I left it right behind my seat.

It was pretty cold here this morning – 19°F when I got in the car with the kids to take them to school.

Marit was riding shotgun, and Gretchen and Kasen climbed into the back.

“Mom, what’s this bucket for?” Gretchen asked. “And what’s in it?”

Oops. 😬

I had still completely forgotten about the bucket which now contained my half inch block of frozen urine specimen.

I hesitated before I answered.

I briefly considered making up something slightly less humiliating.

But honestly, nobody talks about this stuff.

And I’m not gonna be embarrassed when I know this happens to so many other women who employ some interesting tactics just to not wet their pants.

So I didn’t tell them I poured some Lysol into the bucket because I was going to clean the floor mats and then I totally forgot to clean them.

They would have totally bought that story. I forget I started to do stuff all the time.

But if something like this happens to my girls one day, I want them to know it’s okay.

I fessed up.

“Umm… That’s my pee bucket,” I told them.

Kasen was horrified.

But his larger-than-average noggin was probably more than 1/5 responsible for my problems so he could use a dose of reality.

Marit was mostly just afraid of spillage.

Gretchen was like, “That’s actually a good idea.”

I agree with Gretchen.

Whatever gets the job done.