Posted by Des on May 14, 2002 at 14:14
I wonder how many of you have been genuinely ‘caught short’ in a difficult situation and the real panic and embarrassment that follows. It would be interesting to have some feed-back (like this board used to quite a lot, if you read the old posts) from both genders for a change.
My experience goes back to my later teens, when I could not always handle things with the easy confidence that comes later.
I was in the school Road Safety team and we used to have ‘home’ and ‘away’ matches. Two older boys and two older girls formed the team. Most of the schools were mixed schools like ours but on this particular day, we had to play an all girls school.
We arrived in the morning at about 9.30 and eventually started the quiz. At about 10.30 we had a break with orange squash and then went straight into the second part. At the end they gave us more orange squash and some buffet food. A few speeches of thanks were made and so on. We hadn’t bothered with toilets or anything up till then, but I’d actually needed a pee for a while and now definitely needed to go, not having been since setting off for school at 8-15. It was now midday and we’d drunk quite a bit of squash.
Straight after the speeches we slipped out of the hall to look for the toilets but all we could see were our girls going into what were obviously the girls toilets but nothing for boys! It struck on us then that there probably weren’t any as it was a girls school! We both admitted to each other that we absolutely needed to go before setting off on the journey back by service bus.
We went back to the hall where our teacher, Miss Black urged to get ready to go back. We asked her about toilets and she said there wouldn’t be any as it was a girls school. The girls were back by now and thought this all hilarious and suggested we’d have to find a dark corner! Our teacher said there would be a toilet somewhere for male visitors but she didn’t know where. Couldn’t we wait? We’d be back to our own school soon. I found myself with the other lad stupidly saying ‘Yes!’ Actually I was dying to go but didn’t like to admit it in front of the girls and a woman teacher! Anyway, I thought optimistically I could somehow wait till we got back!
We got to the bus stop and had to wait for our bus, the ordinary service bus that would take us the fifteen minute journey back. As we stood there in the cold weather I realised I’d been stupid to say I could wait till we got back! I was rapidly moving from really needing to go, to desperate to go, and after five minutes of waiting for a bus that didn’t come I was in a real panic! I couldn’t stand still! I had to confide in my mate in a whisper that I couldn’t wait, and what could I do? He said he couldn’t either! And his legs were tightly crossed!
I managed to stammer out ‘When’s the bus going to come Miss?’ And one of the girls helpfully said: ‘I think the boys need to go somewhere Miss!’ It must have been the way we kept walking in circles ann stamping our feet.
I was trying to appear calm but I was at my wits end and really terrified I’d pee my pants in front of the girls! Well, what can you do in that position? I won’t say, but answers on a postcard please to ………………………!
How many of you have been stuck like that! And how did you get out of it?
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