Happy Anniversary, Bree!

Yesterday was our friend Bree’s 2^nd wedding anniversary.

I remember her and Scott’s wedding like it was yesterday.

Not because of how beautiful Bree was or how sweet the ceremony was. (Although both were very true).

Nope, it is forever etched in my mind because it was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I tell people it was my “Write-in to Glamour magazine horror story”.

Dave was out of town and it was a long drive to the ceremony, so I met a friend and her new boyfriend halfway. We parked the Mini in Duluth and I hopped in his back seat for the rest of the ride.

He was new to her life and I knew she really liked him, so I wanted to make a favorable first impression. I was also trying to keep my energy high because I had come straight from a baby shower for my friend Miranda, so I was chugging water from a 64 ounce bottle I had bought on the way.

We are running late as we wheel into the church parking lot. Everyone is already seated, waiting for the big moment. The three of us rush in and take our seats just as the ceremony begins.

As soon as Bree begins walking down the aisle, I realized how serious my predicament was. 64 ounces of water urgent to leave my body.

(64 ounces. We’re talking about 4 pounds of fluid. That is a small baby!)

I sit back. Breathe deeply. Practice pregnancy techniques. I’m so focused. I can do this. I can make it through. I have no idea at this point what is taking place in the ceremony. All I can think about is the preemie lodged in my bladder.

I shift my weight. It must have jurgled the fluid. You know the air bubble that comes up in those huge water coolers which causes it to come our quicker? I think I released my bubble. I could sense it was about to flow.

We’re on a velvet-lined pew and I can already picture in my mind the damage that urine could do to a material like that. Not likely it has been scotch-guarded.

My bottom is off of that velvet and out the sanctuary door before the dum, dum, da dum’s are even over.

There has to be a bathroom in the foyer, right? Every public building has a foyer bathroom, right?

For future reference, should you ever find yourself in the same predicament: Redwine Methodist Church in Gainesville, GA does not have a bathroom. Instead, they have a door (that looks like a bathroom) but actually leads to a janitorial closet.

At this point, I want to cry. Partly out of desperation and partly to relieve the fluid pressure in my body.

Just go in the closet.

I consider it, but in retrospect I am glad that I did not in fact relieve myself in a church closet. Don’t judge me, people, you have no idea the pain I was in.

Instead I RUN down the front stairs and turn my head left, then right , then left again looking for another door or another building or anything with a toilet. I had to think fast. My brain switches to survival mode and my thoughts start to sound like a “See Spot Run” book.

GO RIGHT.

(I start sprinting—kinda—with my legs crossed around each other like spaghetti noodles. )

Building! DOOR! Pull handle hard. Locked!

See other building. Run. Pull door harder. Locked!

Scream!

Run back to building.

Pee coming.

Squat.

Flood down legs.

Tights and skirt still on.

NO!!!!!!!

Beside Hwy 53 in Gainesville with cars driving by, my friend Bree is committing her life to Scott before God and men, and 64 ounces of fluid is flowing down my legs (and filling my tights).

I run behind the church. I take off my skirt and ring it out like a wash rag. I take leaves and wipe my drenched body.

Now 4 pounds lighter, I sprint back up to the church steps where people were exiting. My friend and her date see me and say, “Where have you been?! You missed the whole ceremony!”

“I couldn’t find a bathroom.” Which wasn’t necessarily a lie.

I just didn’t have the heart to tell her.

Lest I remind you at this point: I am without a car. I am the third wheel with my friend and her date--a guy that my friend really wants to impress-- and her 25-year-old friend just peed her pants.

So, I opened the door to the back seat of his car and literally hovered over the seat for the 15-minute ride to the reception. Surely he saw me in the review mirror. What he must have thought, I can only imagine.

I went through the entire reception--soaking wet with urine. At one point the bride actually slapped me on the bottom. It made a suction sound. I still get queasy recalling that moment.

Towards the end of the evening, the beautiful bride hugged me and told me that she had been so nervous before the ceremony and that she had been sweating uncontrollably. What she said next, I’ll never forget.

“Steph, I am soaking wet under this dress."

I told her, “You have NO IDEA what wet is, Bree.”

She never asked me what I meant by that peculiar statement.

Now she knows. And to the disgust of my husband, so does the rest of the world wide web.