Peeing in a cup

So, I’m at work today. It turns out that all the social workers in the homeless shelter are off today as well, so I’m having to fill in downstairs at the shelter. It’s a department that I don’t even work in, but it’s a nice change of pace.

Also, I’m the only male employee in the shelter which means I have to do the “drops.” So, basically, I’m here to watch homeless guys pee in cups all day.

Having worked in a substance abuse treatment center, it’s not something with which I’m unfamiliar. I’m an old pro at it.

Unless you don’t know, guys are really, really uncomfortable peeing near each other. Walk into an airport washroom where there are a bazillion urinals lined up like grave stones at Arlington Cemetery, and the guys will be spaced apart as far as possible from each other.

So, you can imagine how uncomfortable it must make a guy feel to have another guy standing behind you in a teeny-weeny restroom, waiting for you to merrily pee away.

It makes me, the guy standing behind you in the small restroom, pretty uncomfortable too, especially during those interminable silences when absolutely nothing is happening. Which makes the pee-er more uncomfortable, thus making it harder to pee, which makes me, the pee-ee more uncomfortable, and . . . . Well, you get the idea.

You definitely don't want to stand behind the guy and shriek at him: "Pee damnit! Come ON, already!! Pee, you idiot!! What's the hold-up?? Now! NOW! NOW!!!"

No, it’s my job to make the pee-er more comfortable with peeing.

I'm kind of pee-shy myself. It all began when I was seventeen and getting a physical to go to college. I had to give a specimen, but the washroom at the doctor's office in my little-bitty home town was all the way across the waiting room. As a shy seventeen year old, I was so awfully self-conscious about carrying the little plastic cup in front of God and everybody. I just knew everyone in the waiting room was waiting to see me emerge, triumphantly with my specimen.

I knew everyone was watching and waiting. I couldn't pee. No way.

So, I had to go back across the waiting room empty-handed. And of course, the nurse sent me back again for another try. This went on three times until, finally, they let me bring a specimen from home. There were probably little kids in the waiting room saying, "Mommy, what's wrong with him?"

So, I’ve developed a sure fire way of ensuring pee-ation. Here's the trick: You imagine yourself in a roller coaster just as it’s slowly going over the crest of the first hill. (For some reason, wooden roller coasters work better).

Just imagine the coaster cresting the top of the chain lift, click-click-click, then it releases, and boom. Ladies and gentlemen, we have pee.

Works like a charm. You should try it next time.

So, today when a client said, “This might take a while,” I told him about the roller coaster scenario. He peed right away and said, “Hey! That works.” We were in and out in a flash.

Damn, I’m good.