(Excerpt from a story I wrote a while ago. Axl Rose and Mr. Brownstone are even mentioned. It’s from the same story that How to Love is from. Feedback is always welcome.)

I did it again. I got on the subway without going to the bathroom first and I’m going to have to fight my bladder for the one hour it takes me to reach home. This is a usual occurrence; I have problems urinating in public places. It really sucks when I’m at school and I have to go to the bathroom. I would love to use the urinal, you just unzip and you’re there, but it just doesn’t work for me. It’s not that I can’t pee standing up, it’s just that I prefer taking a piss sitting down. I go into a stall, sit down, lower my pants, and take off my tightie-whities, which makes it even more difficult ‘cause they’re really tight, the way tightie-whities are supposed to be, I guess. I asked my mom for boxers once. “Why do you need the extra room?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Everyone else has them,” I said.

“If you wear boxers, your scrotum will hang lower and lower, until it reaches the ground. Do you want to be like a dog?” She was starting to scare me. Like when she told me shadows were dead people stuck on the ground because they sinned too much.

“Sean’s balls don’t drag on the floor.” Sean is our dog.

“Sean doesn’t have testicles,” she said. He had been neutered when he was one. It was only then that I realized that being neutered meant that his balls had been removed. “Think about the dog next door.”

I’ll admit, the dog next door did have a dangling scrotum, and it did drag on the floor. But the point is, I needed boxers. That dog is the one who needed the tightie-whities.

My mother always referenced Axl Rose when the subject of underwear came up. If Axl Rose could wear tight, American flag biker shorts during the Use Your Illusion tour, then I could live with wearing tightie-whities. Axl Rose was her secret crush, the epitome of everything she was against. “I wish he would dance with me,” she sighed the first time she heard Mr. Brownstone. She had no idea what brownstone was. I never got boxers.

Even though I can only use stalls, they aren’t much better than urinals. “Here I sit, brokenhearted, came to shit, but barely farted,” and “If no paper, do not linger, be a sport and use your finger,” are the poems that populate the walls, along with racial slurs and pictures of penises and naked women. I have marble tiles, a full-length mirror, and a still-life painting of an owl in my bathroom at home. Contrary to the stressful environment at school, it’s very relaxing and is conducive to urination. It’s because of this that I’m standing on the 7 with my bladder ready to explode. I might even pee in my pants.

Anyway, when I come out of the stall in the bathroom at school, guys that are there are looking at me, thinking, “Eww, that guy just took a dump.” I want to stick my hands in their face and make them sniff my hands, because they sure don’t smell like shit. I don’t though, that would just be stupid and insane.

I go wash my hands, even though I don’t have to because no one washes their hands in the boy’s bathroom. I always do.

I didn’t feel its effects at first. My history with caffeine has been relatively short; I don’t drink soda and I occasionally get the diluted liquid they call a latte at Starbucks. When I went to the hole in the wall a block away from work that claims to have the best coffee on the Upper East Side, I decided to confront my fear of caffeine.

I was arrogant at first. “This is it?” I thought to myself as I gulped my beverage down. I devoured a frosted blueberry cheese danish at the same time, which probably was not the best idea since I don’t eat sweets often. It was only when I left work that I noticed that my heart was racing, reminding me of the time that I took No-Doz for no reason in high school other than because Robert pressured me.

By the time I got home, my hands were shaking. I decided it would be the perfect time to pluck my eyebrows, only I couldn’t hold the tweezers steady and almost poked my right eye. For some reason, I sat down, blasted Jay-Z’s Black Album, and wrote a story about a 25 year-old college dropout who wears a top hat and has a handlebar mustache. I don’t remember what the impetus was behind this horrendous story. I just read it over and it sounds like I smoked two bowls before writing. It’s shameful. It went into the folder “Things I will never show the world,” joining the love poem that I wrote in 6th grade for my crush, the very first story I wrote about how a television eats a little boy and transforms him into a girl, and the list of foolish demands I gave my parents when I went to high school (wanting an allowance of $50 a week, getting $5).

He asks, “Can I get your number?”

Girlfriend #1: Sure.
Rebound #1: Sure.
Hook-up #1: Sure.
Friend with benefits: You already have my number.
Girlfriend #2: Sure.

He asks, “Am I a good kisser?”

Girlfriend #1: The best.
Rebound #1: The best.
Hook-up #1: I like the counter-clockwise tongue swirl you do.
Friend with benefits: Second best behind the dog.
Girlfriend #2: The best.

He asks, “What position do you like the most?”

Girlfriend #1: Reverse cowgirl.
Rebound #1: All of them
Hook-up #1: Let’s get the Kama Sutra and try new ones.
Friend with benefits: Doggie.
Girlfriend #2: We’re more than just sex.

He asks, “Have you loved anyone like you love me?”

Girlfriend #1: No, you’re the only one for me babe.
Rebound #1: Yeah, but it’s over now. It’s different with you anyway.
Hook-up #1: Let’s take it slow. We just met.
Friend with benefits: I love all my friends equally.
Girlfriend #2: Yes.

He asks, “Why are we breaking up?”

Girlfriend #1: I don’t love you anymore.
Rebound #1: I don’t love you anymore.
Hook-up #1: I don’t love you (anymore).
Friend with benefits: I don’t love you (in that way).
Girlfriend #2: I don’t love you anymore.