One time at the urologist's office I was embarrassed to pee while doing a urine test. I always stay up late studying the night before so I am sure to pass the urine test, but this one was different and I was not prepared.
About 20 years ago when I was in my 40s, I went to a urologist because it was getting more and more difficult to pee.
The doctor sent me into a little restroom that was right next to the waiting room and the receptionist's desk. I had to do a special test to measure the flow rate of my urine (uroflowmetry or a uroflow test). The test was actually quite interesting as I had to pee on a sort of umbrella thing (Uroflowmetry Machine) that measured the amount of urine over time to determine how fast or slow I was peeing . . . all the way down to the very last drop that caused one last tiny reading.
No, wait, the last drop couldn’t cause a last reading on the uroflowmetry machine…
Because as everyone knows
And as the little jingle goes:
No matter how you shake and dance
The last lone drop goes in your pants.
Men will attest to that.
But I digress.
The embarrassment stemmed from feeling like the restroom was right in the middle of the waiting room and reception area and that was compounded by the fact that there was no soundproofing; I could clearly hear every word of the discussion that two women were having at the receptionist's desk. Obviously, they were engrossed in conversation and were not listening to see how my pee was flowing over the little umbrella thing, but if they were listening, they would have heard every drop of pee except for the one in my pants.
Of course, my shy bladder and brain were totally convinced that the two women were simultaneously conversing AND attentively listening to the progress of my urine stream because it was every bit as interesting as whatever they were discussing. And, of course, the patients in the waiting room were also fine-tuned to the drama unfolding in the little restroom.
I felt like I was on stage and had a full audience watching me perform. I’m pretty sure the urologist provided x-ray-vision glasses for everyone so they could watch through the walls so they could not only hear me pee, but they could also see me pee.
Well, with a full audience, I promptly got stage fright, my bladder froze up, and I could not perform. All the muscles surrounding my bladder and in the pelvic floor just seized up and stared back at the audience like a herd of deer in the headlights. The muscles didn’t move and neither did the urine.
To take my mind off of the onlookers, I tried humming a tune, singing a song, whistling Dixey, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I conjugated a few verbs and tried to picture sunsets and a star-filled night sky. I even tried visualizing my audience wearing just their underwear like you are supposed to do when giving a speech, but nothing helped. At least I didn’t picture them naked because that might have caused an erection and erections make it nigh impossible to pee.
After several minutes, my imagination was tired and so I just applying brute force to the muscles, and I managed to squeeze a timid stream into the urethra. That warmed things up a bit and I was finally able to slowly empty my bladder.
Afterwards, the urologist reviewed the data that the little umbrella thing came up with. He said I had a very slow flow indicating that I had benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) or an enlarged prostate. I said that that was certainly true, but the even slower flow was because the restroom was located in the middle of the waiting room and reception area so everyone could listen in on the proceedings.
The urologist prescribed Flomax (Tamsulosin) for my enlarged prostate to relax the muscles in my prostate and bladder neck to make it easier to pass urine and improve the weak urine flow.
I have also found that sitting to pee relaxes the muscles in the pelvic floor and that makes it easier to empty my bladder with the added benefits that I don’t have to aim for the water in the toilet bowl, I never pee on the toilet seat, and I never forget to put the toilet seat back down because I never put it up in the first place.
And now I know why women get upset when men leave the toilet seat up. In the middle of the night, when you get up to take a wee, you generally leave the lights off because you can see well enough in the dark. Your leg muscles know the height of the toilet seat. When you go to sit on the toilet, your leg muscle memory knows the perfect time to relax the leg muscles so you can come in for a soft landing on the toilet seat. But someone left the toilet seat up and when your butt cheeks don’t feel the toilet seat at the proper level, they send a message to your leg muscles to immediately engage to keep your butt from falling into toilet bowl. But alas, the message has to go up to the brain and back down to the leg muscles and by then, it is too late. Try as they might, your leg muscles cannot save your butt and down you go onto the cold rim of the toilet bowl and, in all likelihood, into the cold water in the bowl.
And that, folks, is why we must leave the toilet seat down.