As many of you know, I try to be fairly polite when the situation calls for it. Like when meeting new people, or meeting their grandmothers. Granted, I listen to their grandmothers because I want to do impressions of them in the car the moment we leave, but I’m pretty polite in the moment.
Part of being polite, to me anyway, is about not asking for things. Sometimes it goes a little too far. If someone says “Would you like a glass of water?” I’ll say no thanks, even if I do. Or if someone says, “Would you like a glass of booze?” I’ll say, “Oh, maybe just a small one” when what I really mean is “Yes, all the booze for me, please.” You always end with “please” because we’re being polite, remember?
So I drink my glass of booze and then I have to pee.
How, my friends, are you asking this question?
I’ve been going with the classic, “May I use your restroom?” But then people always say “No.” 90% of the time they are kidding. 10% of the time they are not, and in the spirit of politeness I won’t go into the resulting messes, but suffice to say there ARE messes and everyone leaves understandably upset. Some of us damp.
There are other options, of course.
“Where is your restroom?”
Not bad. But it’s kind of a demand, right? Maybe people have the right to demand the bathroom? Also, the only time I’ve ever asked this as a purely informational question, not as a way of asking to use the bathroom, was when I was staying at someone’s house and afraid I may need to vomit in the night. We were way past polite at that point.
Sidenote: Isn’t it funny how the better we get to know someone, the less polite we are? I’ll open the car door for a stranger, then put the thing in reverse and back over my mom. We’re cool like that.
How about just saying “Bathroom?” And raising my eyebrows? I have pretty thick eyebrows. They are really the emotion center of my face, both in expressing emotion and in that they cause me the emotion of pain when I pluck them, which is a necessary evil. And if you think pain isn’t an emotion, try watching the entire Rocky series in one day, you heartless bastard.
Maybe the answer is to just not drink anything if I might be at someone’s house. Just show up as Pete: Our New Friend Who is Very Dehydrated all the time. Is that endearing? Dehydration?
Anyway, the good news is that if I’ve peed in your house I consider you a friend. If I’ve crapped in your house, you are really an elite, super friend. This is the Pete equivalent of a cat bringing you a dead bird. You don’t want it to happen, you hate that it happened, but you have to just take a step back and remember that in some small way, I’m just showing you that I care.