It hit me the other day that things happen to me and that’s normal because things happen to everyone. Only I tend to share them in a forum for many to laugh at. I find comfort, however,  that their laughter is marred by the deep-recessed knowledge that shit happens to them too.

This epiphany happened on Friday when a little kid accidentally peed on my leg at the mall. Let me paint the picture with words.

I was in the Spokane Valley mall this past Friday and after the long 130 mile trip from Moscow, two bottles of water and a coffee proved too much for my tank to hold. So, I went to the restroom. Quickly.

I don’t know about most other guys but when choosing a urinal I always try to pick a far right or left one just to lower the probability of having to pee next to someone. There is always an awkward period of silence and if it is broken, the awkwardness is increased exponentially. Here are three scenarios that happened over the past few years causing me to choose pee-solitude.

1. 2004 Salt Lake International Airport: An elderly guy is peeing next to me and explaining that the first sign of prostate cancer is when the pee-stream goes “that way”, briefly taking his hands away from control position to demonstration position causing him to lose control, piss the front of his pants and scream, “DANG FUCK!”.
2. 2009 Patty’s Too, Post Falls, Idaho: Guy peeing next to me farts and begins to fake cough. I couldn’t help but start to laugh which caused me to fake cough as well.
3. 2002 US Naval Air Station San Diego: A drunk sailor steps up to the urinal next to mine and states as soon as he’s done he is going to punch me in the face. I finished first and calmly left, passing two Marines to whom he declared the same intention. You can guess…

So there are three perfect examples of why, given the choice, the urinal decision is important. But sometimes trouble comes to you and on Friday, trouble came in the form of an eight year old kid. This actually happened.

I walked into the empty mall restroom and before me where four urinals; two tall ones on the left and two shorter ones on the right. I chose the tall one on the far left. Shortly after an eight year old kid comes in and chooses the one right next to me and while I thought that was weird, I found it even more weird that he managed to pee positioning himself in such a way that his back was to me. Now it’s not that I was trying to watch a little kid pee (you perv) but there are some things you just can’t help but notice. Especially if it’s weird and kind of funny.

This little kid obviously wanted to use the “big guy” urinal and had no choice but to pee next to me. So, he tried as best as he could to do so discretely and he would have been successful but he forgot that there is a possibility of other people coming in the restroom. And people did. Realizing he was completely exposed by peeing with his pack to me, he freaked and quickly turned to his entire body position hard left, overshooting the urinal and crossing the stream over my leg…and then back again. With two lines of warm piss soaking into my pant leg I heard the kid let out a faint and defeated, “oooooh”.

You can not be mad at this. If you get mad at this, then you are a bad person. I know he didn’t mean such a faux pas and a faux pas of this epic scale usually involves a “talking to” but knowing that this kid was on the verge of tears over friendly fire, all I could say was “don’t worry about it, buddy”.

I walked over to the sink and proceeded to paper towel the accident away without making him feel worse. I fully expected him to sprint for the door, but God bless him, he remembered to wash his hands.