WEM Time with The Oracle

My life is not exactly filled with wall-to-wall accomplishments.  It may be different for other people who spend their time teaching kindergartners to read or performing breast augmentation surgery, but in order to accommodate my largely boring/selfish lifestyle, I have lowered the bar significantly as to what qualifies as "pride-worthy".

I guess my sense of accomplishment was almost semi-legitimate because I did make it through the entire 30 days with no alcohol that I blogged about a few weeks ago.  The four of us celebrated as a group by basically saturating our livers in the beers of the world for the 72 hours most people refer to as "Memorial Day Weekend", but we shall henceforth refer to as "Weekend of Epic Milestones", or WEM. I like making up acronyms. It makes me feel important.

Many exciting things happened during WEM, things of which I am alternately proud and crushingly ashamed, but the piece de resistance most definitely happened on Monday afternoon around 2:00.  By this time I had been at the beach for about 4 hours and had consumed a large iced coffee and about 4 Cornonas.

Time for some back story:

Living in Florida, I have at many times had the need to pee while at the beach.  My friends say "Go in the ocean! It's basically a toilet that takes up 2/3 of the Earth's surface!" but I cannot do it.  Perhaps it's due to what I like to think is the one modicum of dignity that I am still clinging to, but most likely it's just a shy bladder, which retreats into my diaphragm at the very mention of nautical urination.

I have found the cure for a shy bladder, and it is indeed a large iced coffee and 4 Coronas. It helps that this was not my first need to pee that day. My multiple visits to the Shell station bathroom, where I continued to not buy anything, were progressively enraging the attendant, who was not looking too thrilled to be working a holiday in the first place.  When the need struck me yet again, I decided it was the time for bravery and ventured into the water.

Although my first try didn't work out,  after some sage advice from a truly wise friend, who for the purpose of this post will be known as "The Oracle", I was able to experience the truly magical feeling of public urination.  I followed these simple steps which may be of use to those of you who have a similar aversion to this activity.

1. Fully immerse yourself in the water, even splashing playfully in the waves.
2. Stand up slowly, acting like now is the time for reflection and a breather from all this watery horseplay.
3. When the level of the water is BELOW the crotch, about at the upper thigh, stare out at the horizon. Onlookers will assume you are communing with nature and contemplating the infinite and incalculable nature of existence, most likely keeping their distance, awed by your depth and spiritual connection to the ocean. 
4. Concentrate.  This is definitely the biggest challenge, because at any moment a huge wave could come out of no where and knock you down or someone could start talking to you.  It is imperative that you block these possibilities out of your mind. The consciousness must cradle the urethra.  
5. Pee.  
6. Pee more.
7. Pee pee pee pee

Like I said, I had a lot of diuretics that day.

For those of you who are disgusted by my confession, you should know that I did swim around to rinse off afterward. Since I had just finished peeing myself in that very spot, I doubt that the little swim did any good though. 

The Oracle and I continued our walk back to our spot, where I shared my sense of pride and self-worth with the group.  Since my friends are just as boring and selfish as I am, they were happy for me, and we rejoiced greatly in the glory of my great accomplishment.  What have YOU done lately?