My New Best Friend

I’M ECSTATIC! Now that is a very strong word, so you may think I’m exaggerating -- but no, this is the real deal, full on, over the top excitement!! And what’s crazy is, I’m excited about a product. Not my typical area of intense exclamations.

Before we go any further, I should warn you, my faithful reader, that this product I’m about to rave over relates to a specific bodily function, and I know that “nice girls” are only supposed to talk about bodily functions in private (if at all), but this product is so remarkable, even life changing, that I’m willing to talk about it -- or rather scream at the top of my lungs about it -- regardless of whatever “nice girl” rules I might be breaking.

So, what’s this all about? Well.... peeing. Yes, this is a post about peeing. But hold on for a few more paragraphs and I think you’ll be cool with the topic, and the aforementioned product, and even afore that, the ecstatic part. Just hang with me.

Here’s the deal: I take a medication that forces me to drink somewhere around 7-8 LITERS of fluid a day... notice, I didn’t say glasses, I said LITERS (that comes to about 2 gallons a day), and that number can go up in warm weather. This presents a problem for servers in restaurants who swear they just filled my glass literally 6 seconds ago, but that is a story for another blog. The primary fallout is that I have to pee OFTEN. There is no old fashion version of a road trip where the Dad’s says, “You’ll pee when we get there,” and barrels off down the highway. Oh no, anyone who has traveled with me since I’ve become disabled knows that I’m a constant interruption on the road. This also means when I have to pee, I really to have to go, because I’m likely holding more pee at that interval than most people pee in a whole day. As a result, I can’t say (as many discerning women might), “Oh, that gas station was just too disgusting, I think I’ll hold it until the next one.” I don’t have that luxury. I’m trapped.

Now, we move on to my next challenge. I don’t have an abdomen. For those of you who are new to this blog see (Backstory); all the abdominal musculature was removed from my body, so I can’t do the hovering tricks or other antics that girls use to avoid sitting on a scary toilet.
Again, I’m trapped. If we add the complication of squatting when camping which for me is extremely difficult if not impossible without making a mess out of the whole deal, well, I have some peeing issues to say the least.

As I’ve been preparing for this trip, I’ve been worrying about how I was going to manage having to pee in the outside world for 50 days straight. Now, I had a vague memory from when I was about 12 or so, of there being a plastic sideways funnel for just such a purpose in the Whole Earth Catalog -- but I’d never heard or saw of anything like it since. When I presented my growing concern to my friend Liz Cross, who had just given me a hardcore Camping 101 lesson the week before, she set to work trying to resolve this problem. I am thrilled to say it was she who found the miracle product.

Before I introduce it to you, I just have to say I think that this marvel of ingenuity and convenience is the greatest mechanism of liberation for women since The Pill (hence my use of the word ECSTATIC! at the beginning of this blog)! As soon as it arrived I tested it, and I can honestly say there was not a single drop of dribble-age the very first time, AND I barely had to move my drawers! I’m telling you it is just that simple. Okay, take a look at the video:



A single pack of 5 only costs $4.95. And the thing is, one doesn’t need to be going on some big adventure to make use of this amazing little product. For me, it’s life-changing, a whole new way of thinking about peeing in the world! There are plenty of times when I don’t want to sit on a toilet in a restaurant, gas station, department store, I could go on, but I’m sure you get the the idea. And the cool thing, I was all crazy evangelical BEFORE P-Mate said they were going to sponsor Off The Map. This is an honest to goodness partnership!

The P-Mate is truly my new best friend!

pmateusa.com