Coming Clean in Your Swimming Pool

If you have a pool, and invite me over for a swim, I’ll probably pee in it. There. I said it. I’ll pee in it. To me, a pool is nothing more than an oversized toilet designated for number one, which, occasionally one can perform cannonballs into. After all, the bathroom is arguably the most comfortable place in your home just as the pool is the place to be on a hot summer’s day. For centuries, man has peed in every pool he’s laid torso in. Still, for centuries and beyond, we as a society will deny that we’ve ever opened up the floodgates and added a few stray drop to the 700 plus gallons. I’m sick of the charade. It’s been eating away at me, keeping me up many a humid summer night, and frankly, I think it’s time we all spill our bladders.
I recently read a blog about my niece’s “best day ever“. The nine year old wrote that the apex of her little life was when her friend and her stayed in the pool six hours straight with no bathroom break. An emphasis was placed on the bathroom break font, as if to divert all embarrassing attention away from their seemingly shameful act in which they did perform. Name me one girl under the age of ten who can stay in water for six hours and not relieve herself and I’ll show you a tortured corpse with a urinary tract infection. It’s simply not possible.

This got me thinking of how much I hate the fact that everyone, across the nation, are keeping their pools sterile by always going before and after, but never in the pool. Granted, I do not go around looking for pools just so I can let out my Big Gulp of Fresca. Before going in anyone’s pool, I usually use a bathroom out of common courtesy and comfort. Still, after dipping my body in the chilled waters, I cannot help but let it out. The exquisite, inextinguishable relief and release. There’s nothing like building a warm pocket around your goose bumped body. If a stranded scientist did this in the arctic, he’d be called smart. Me, I’m apparently gross. Still, when wadding next to a pile of dead flies and an overturned water beetle, a little urine never hurt anybody. In fact, urine has been called the “new medicine,” being known to help fight cancers and provide nourishment, and proteins to a malnourished body. Urine has also been known to help fight infections. At this point, I can’t see how peeing in a pool has not become essential one’s summer enjoyment.

Another thing I just can’t stand about swimming pools is the folklore. The myth that has kept kids legs crossed for years. I’m talking about the elusive “urine indicator” chemical that can be added to pools to weed out the serial-pissers that descend upon unsuspecting pools. My own ears have heard many a child and adult churn out such a bullshit balderdash to keep other tiny bladders in line and away from peer humiliation. As the story goes, there is a magical chemical sold somewhere in the world that everyone’s best friend or father has obtained and disseminated in the pool to detect any leakage. The myth was furthered in the early ’90’s when an substance named Wee-Wee-See was added to a public pool in the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Damn you Pete Wrigley’s.

First off, the scientific possibility of such a chemical is not conceivable in such an age. I mean, we don’t even have flying cars yet. To create a chemical that only reacts to the occasional appearance of a body fluid, that, in addition, does not react to chlorine, chemical shock, algae, lifeless insects, saliva, and acid rain is just preposterous. Second, why would any family or pubic pool spend money or tax dollars on something that only benefits in a couple minutes of laughs from a second party and a crying kid who couldn’t hold it anymore. Those waters get cold, dammit.

Once, when I was a Freshman in High School, I almost murdered my one-time enemy with my bare hands for insisting this chemical was real. “My uncle has it. He always embarrasses my brother with it,” he said like the jackass he was. I called him out on this impossibility, having once believed such a fable before reading an official study of it online. “No, it’s real. You’re just jealous ‘cause you want to piss in pools.” Not having the guts to tell the truth in front of a group of giggling girls, I just turned red and called him a jerk. Later, we all went swimming. I made sure I let it all out next to him during a game of volleyball. The front line was extra warm that day.

Also, when babies pee in pools, their parent’s generally hold them up out of the water, letting the stream cascade down as if leaving them partially submerged would taint the water. When this happens, everyone just laughs at how cute the baby is, since they don’t know any better . Well, you know what? I know better, and I gotta go!

Call me a baby. Call me a slob. When it’s your time to go, your privacy is safe under the waters. And why do you think the chlorine’s in there? Just to sting your eyes? So this summer, when you look in the bathroom mirror before diving into your neighbor’s pool, ask yourself if you have the guts to admit you’re human.