Roadside Rest Stops … How Gross is This?

We’re on a cross-country road trip with our 5-year-old who has a bladder the size of a pea. When he needs to go, he needs to go immediately lest we suffer the consequences of the great flood inside our car. We’ve seen our share of frightful potties along the way. The open-air rest stops in the desert always worry me, especially when I see the “watch for rattlesnakes” signs. But I was at a complete loss when in the vast emptiness of west Teas my son announce, “I gotta go.” There probably wasn’t an exit in sight for another 60 miles, much less another car. My husband had an idea – pull to the side of the road and let him take aim. We figured if a police officer caught us, surly they’d see our son and understand our plight.

It’s a guy thing. They and do that without soaking their shoes. I gave up pottying on the side of the road when I was in college. Though, many deserted highways seem far cleaner than a few gas stations we’ve stopped at so I haven’t ruled it out entirely.

Today we were so close to Louisiana we could touch the state but road construction had us at a complete standstill in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Truman announces, “I gotta go potty!” And Rick and I freak. There is no way to exit to the gas station nearby, and we sure as hell couldn’t let our son out to pee on the pavement. Rick has another brilliant idea. He says, “Grab that empty Sprite Zero bottle.” I tried to put it off as long as humanly possible, but every time Truman moaned Rick insisted I get in the back seat and explain the alternative to him.

My sons whines were unrelenting and I finally gave in, crawling into the backseat (which is not as easy as it used to be), sliding over the pillows and wedging my body against the cooler. I held up the empty Sprite Zero bottle and looked at my son’s tear-streaked face. “Ok, love, here’s the plan. We are too far from the exit and there are too many cars here for you to go to the bathroom outside. So here’s what we can do. We can put your pee-pee in this bottle and you can go to the bathroom in here. I promise not to make you drink it.”

My son’s face lit up with laughter, a painful act for anyone in urinary distress. He says, “No. I don’t want to do that.” My husband encouraged him, saying it would be just this once. He just shook his head. He said, “I’ll wait for the Shell station.”

As luck would have it, mere minutes later we got past the construction and drove right to a gas station. The bathroom was an absolute fright, but it served its purpose well. Honestly, I was relieved we didn’t have to resort to the bottle-potty. And surprisingly, Truman was as well.

Rick’s new idea? Getting one of those bottles they have for men in nursing homes and hospitals. Yeah, I nixed that idea fast. 

Photo, Flickr, tim eschaton