An Accident in the Stairwell in These Foolish Things

Last night I braved the oppressive heat to meet my friend Jackie at an entertainment district to go see a concert. This was a lovely, very family-friendly, mellow evening. Jackie and I split a bottle of bubbly and hydrated with plenty of water.

Show was fun and lasted a couple of hours. Jackie and I had some good convo and even danced a little bit and had some fun watching the crowd.

I had to pee after the show was over, but couldn’t figure out where the bathrooms were so I decided to just hold it until I got home.

She and I parked in different areas, but Jackie had my dress mannequin in her car because she’d borrowed it a few months ago for a display for one of her daughter’s events. She wanted to return it, and I figured she could drive it over to me and I could put the top down in Mini Pearl II and just drive her home like that, no biggie. But that also meant that I’d want to take the slow way home because I don’t like to drive on the freeway with my top down. No biggie.

I waited about 10-15 minutes for J to get to her car and drive over to me. We got the mannequin out of her car and into mine. Perfect.

And then we said goodbye and both went our separate ways.

I drove off, top down, music going, bee-bopping along to the tunes, but also felt that bladder pressure getting stronger and stronger.

The slow way was about a 30-minute drive.

By the time I pulled into my building’s parking garage, the pee pressure was severe. I was debating whether or not I should run upstairs to my place, pee, and then come back down and get the mannequin or if I could do it in one painful trip just so I could be done with it.

I chose the latter. I wanted it DONE. I needed to PEE. NOW.

So then it was: get out of the car and go to the other side, pull the mannequin out, run back around the car and get back in and put the top back up, grab the mannequin (fairly heavy, as this is a true life-sized padded designer dress form meant for actual fashion pattern draping…and awkward as fuk - especially when fumbling for keys to get into the stairwell), heave the mannequin towards the stairwell door, get the correct key fob, open the heavy door, start up the stairs…

I only had one flight of stairs to get to my floor, then two MORE doors (the stairwell door and my front door) and then I could run to the bathroom for sweet, sweet relief!

But I was fighting that urge so, so hard at this point. I was holding myself, trying to squeeze and hold…squeeze and hold. And then key fob. Green light. Open door. Go!

I got through the initial stairwell door and up the first set of steps and onto a landing before the last set to make it up to the next floor.

And this is where it all fell apart.

I think I lost my grip of the mannequin and had to put her down. Something about having to do that one extra thing made my bladder push and my pelvic muscles give way. This was it. It was already happening.

Desperate, I looked around for a stairwell camera. I didn’t see one! How is this possible?

Also, how could I be so lucky?

And also, here we go. There was no holding back.

Luckily, I had on a little mini-sundress or I would have peed allllll over my clothes and myself, but it was all I could do to squeeze into the corner of the stairwell, pull down my undies and let it go.

I didn’t even let it all go because I was terrified that someone was going to walk into the stairwell and see me crouched into the corner while a mannequin stood by, somehow sort of guarding me. Taunting me.

I squeezed my bladder shut as hard as I could, got a good hold of the mannequin and somehow made my way to stairwell door #2, down the short part of the hallway to my apartment door, quickly typed in the key code, swung the door wide open and stumble-RAN to the toilet to empty the rest of my bladder.

There had to be 10 gallons in there. HOW?!

At that point, I was so mortified by what had occurred that I threw my dirties in the washer, stumble-fumbled to the shower, and then straight to bed where I pulled the covers over my head.

This morning I got up super early to go take care of my stairwell accident. I put the dog on her leash for a dog walk and grabbed some paper towels to clean the stairwell puddle, but when we got down to that corner spot…

It was perfectly clean!

Uhhhhhh. What? Not a drop of liquid anywhere. Not a hint of a whiff of urine. Or cleaner, for that matter!

ZERO evidence of the event ever happening.

Maybe I didn’t pee myself? Was it all a dream? A hallucination? I know I wasn’t drunk! Not even buzzed!

But then I walked a little further around the corner and saw the camera. Oh My God. Someone SAW ME PEE in the stairwell!!!

But I looked again at the angle and realized that…no, the angle of the camera and the way the stairwell is constructed actually blocks the camera. So. Hm.

Maybe a camera got me. Maybe not.

But the mystery is: how did my pee puddle just somehow disappear in the middle of the night?

I’m now waiting for a questioning and, I don’t know, a fine? Or an anonynote of some sort on my door? Or a notice to go out to all residents saying, “please don’t piss in the stairwells”? Ugh.

Or maybe nothing?

Perplexed,
GS