Like a Racehorse

This one falls squarely in the category of oversharing. But I've got to talk about it, to see if I'm alone and to bring this important issue to light. Here goes. Don't be frightened.

Once upon a time, I would go to a public ladies room, pick a stall as far from the others as possible and get down to business. Now, I have a shy bladder anyway, and always have a hard time getting things going if someone else (particularly someone I know who, God forbid, is trying to talk to me at the same time) is in an adjacent stall. Invariably, though, as I would be trying to pee, someone would clomp into the stall right next to me, sit down (did they even put toilet paper down, I would wonder in quiet horror, so quick it all sounded) and start peeing.

And at times, the sound of that stall neighbor's pee would be so forceful and so loud that I would actually be sort of afraid for her. Good grief, I would think, what is wrong with her. It was no stream -- it was torrential rapids. The truly frightening thing is that I noticed this happened quite a lot. It seemed to me there was an unspoken epidemic of aggressive female pee-ers. I would shake my head and silently applaud my dainty urethra for taking its sweet time and tinkling like a lady.

Well, clearly I should have been more charitable in my consideration of these women, because sometime in the last weeks of my pregnancy and first weeks postpartum, my demure urethra turned punk. And now? Now if I drink one drop of water too many and there's any urgency behind the need to pee, it is off to the races. And the crazy thing is that I seem to have no control over the speed and force of it when this occurs -- I'm either peeing loudly enough for my husband to hear outside the bathroom door (I am not kidding: He asked me if it was me in there or a 300-pound man) or not peeing at all. There is no in between, no happy medium. And oh my goodness, how embarrassing.

I'm sure there is some perfectly reasonable medical explanation for this. Something about the pressure on the bladder or shifts in the other plumbing down there. All I know is that my polite peeing ways are, at least for the moment, resting in peace along with my former bellybutton and my ability to recall information five minutes after I hear it.

And now I know what was "wrong" with all those women: They've given birth.