I just got back from camping. During both nights I had to get up to pee. I NEVER have to get up to pee. Why do I have to get up to pee when it is least convenient, it’s dark, very cold and I am guaranteed to step on my wife while trying to climb back into the tent without a torch?

My theory is that it’s cold at camping so I sweat less and my normal intake of beer has to be eliminated through other channels.

Either that or I drink more beer when I am camping but that seems unlikely.

Could be a good science project. (hope I am not getting too cerebral for Richard)

We got there at 8:30 and it was already over 95°. There were just a few trees on a neighboring property and everyone was crammed under that tiny scrap of shade as we waited for the first game to start. By the second game there was no shade at all.

During that second game, our goalie was sent off with a red card performance that would have made Zidane’s mother proud and we struggled on with 10 men. After the game, I bought two of those large bottles of Gatorade and quaffed them straight down leaving me looking like a pot-bellied Biafran refugee.

The temperature had passed 110° as the third game got underway but luckily a hot wind that stank of horseshit had blown up. Someone announced that, because of the eccentric scoring system they were using (points for clean sheets, points for goals, points deducted for cards), if we won with a clean sheet and some other team lost, we would qualify for the knockout round on Sunday. The last game was a bad tempered affair with players falling down with cramp and we won with a clean sheet.

We trudged sadly up to the results desk to confirm the bad news and the lady there told us with a smile that the other team had in fact lost and that we were tied on points. Fortunately, that red card meant that we would not we playing tomorrow. A tiny cheer went up among our team and we resolved to buy a crate of beer for our fiery Italian goalie. We had dodged the bullet.

I am sorry to say that I have no great pee stories from Saturday. I have no pee stories at all for I did not pee on Saturday.

Epilogue

I went for a swim later that evening. Remember when your mum used to tell you not to go swimming after eating cos you’d get cramp. I have some advice to add. Never go swimming after playing football for 3 hours under the hot desert sun in record temperatures. You’ll get cramp. I did anyway. Cramp in both calfs and both thighs simultaneously. I sank.

When I lived in Manhattan, I remember this one time when we were going to head out to Long Island with Georgina’s cousins and I was really, really thirsty. I had never been so thirsty in all my life. I drank a full pint of water straight down. Then another. And another. I drank six full pints of water then we got in the car and drove out to Long Island.

About 45 minutes into the journey, I really wanted to pee. I kept quiet about it until, eventually, I whispered to Tony that it was imperative that he find a place to stop the car and let me out to relieve myself.

That was the best pee of my entire life. It was like liquid ecstacy. It was like all the sunsets that I had ever witnessed pouring out of my todger. It was the closest I had ever been to a state of pure happiness.

Until tonight.

I should have gone before the lecture - I really needed to. Definitely after the lecture…before we went to the pub and drank all those beers. To get in the car after three beers and think I could then drive 25 miles in heavy traffic without having a pee first was just plain irresponsible. I had my trousers undone and the seat belt loosened to make the situation less urgent. I even took the lid off of my coffee cup in case things became more urgent.

I made it though.

That last red light at Almaden and Trinidad was almost more than I could bear, but bear it I did. I made sure I hit the garage opener at exactly at the right moment - because if you hit it too early you have that frustrating thing where you hit it again twice and it goes up a bit then stops and starts coming down again and you have to wait until things settled down which wastes time and I didn’t have time to waste - I got it just right. I put the car in Park while it was still rolling and ran for the door. Jazz came to greet me and when I dodged right to get by her she dodged the same way but I still made it.

It was the best pee ever. It was like the twin peaks of Bora Bora peeking up over the horizon - after an 18 hour ferry ride - just at the moment that the sun chose to rise between them while handsome polynesians strummed softly on their guitars. It was like that. Made into the purest liquid happiness. Pouring out of my todger.

Hooray pee!

Took the family to the fireworks on Tuesday and I was dying for a pee. When I got back, I felt so relieved that I shouted

Hooray, pee!

at the top of my lungs. Jazz immediately shouted back

Pee? Brilliant!