Wet Shins & Other Sins

Confessions of a Piss Champ

When I was a little kid scampering around the house, exhilarating bolts of urine saturating the crotch of my that-much-darker blue jeans, I’d dream of being the first unified world’s title piss champion. Even though my mom tried to get me to stop, I practiced every day. The scars from layers of uric acid fermenting between my legs stay with me to this day. They remind me of my first steps on a journey that brought me world-wide fame and a huge fortune in endorsement money. Don’t you remember me as Kohler-boy and those commercials for Gatorade’s Kidney JuiceGA$A3 sports drink? But I digress…

They say that the mechanics of the mind restrict child prodigies to the fields of mathematics or music. Not so. Mozart had his concertos, I my fetid pools of liquid waste. Long before my first days of grade school, my prolific hosings had already re-cultivated acres upon acres of fire-scorched lands for state and national park services. The money I made went to pay for the extensive havoc I had wreaked on the local sewage system.

I made the varsity team the first time I tried out. A daily regime that included drinking 14 quarts of Evian a day paid off and by my junior year my bladder could emit at pressures up to 70 psi (about half the force firefighter hoses are capable of attaining). Urologist scouts from across the country found time to come see me relieve myself all the way to three consecutive state championships. When I finally went pro, I won rookie of the year. The ever-growing legions of my fan club affectionately dubbed me “High Coulee” — as in the dam. Crowds would chant it for hours on end as I, with the help of the 400 or so vitamins I popped daily, showered dark, rich streams of piss.

At the time I entered the pro circuit, there were several separate pissing world titles. One title was strictly for duration, another for volume; the last rewarded a combination of the subtle skills of color and smell manipulation (for the piss must appeal to the eye as well as to the porcelain). Wearing my trademark fishing waders, I unified all three world titles at the Anheiser Busch Pro-Am Shout at the TV it’s Pro Football Godammit! Sunday Classic (the women’s league was not yet formed).

In becoming the first person to unify the pissing crowns, I had surpassed my wildest dreams. Of course endorsement offers flooded my mailbox. I also got to pee on the Main Street Electrical Parade at Disneyland. Little boys across the globe imagined themselves in my place as they pissed all over their toilet seats. Girls squatted gleefully as they dreamed of being Mrs. High Coulee.

Unfortunately, my glory passed quicker than fiber through an old woman’s bowels. The sheer speed and ease with which I broke record after record incurred the wrath of the World Pissing Federation’s rules committee, which was itself a panel of former champions and world-record holders. I suspect they were also uncomfortable with where I was taking the sport. It didn’t help that I accidentally drowned a son of one of the WPF committee members in an innocent swordfight contest gone wrong.

Artificial performance enhancement, though perfectly acceptable in Australian rules pissing, is a strict no-no in international competition. WPF looked the other way as my rivals had themselves fitted with state-of-the-art Japanese prosthetic bladders, each capable of storing hundreds of gallons of liquid waste. Trying to stay abreast of the competition, I contracted a vicious series of bladder infections. My urethra developed the equivalent of metacarpal tunnel syndrome. Major reconstructive surgery for my urethra and prostate — upon opening me up, doctors saw that the damage extended far beyond the scope of the original diagnosis — was successful, and I wouldn’t be hobbled by a catheter, but my professional career was over.

I blew all my prize and endorsement money on a waterslide theme park. A group of patrons filed suit when they found out my methods of cutting food coloring costs for the rides, and the park went bankrupt. After that episode, I spent a couple of years in Germany, as a sideshow freak at Oktoberfest. Now all I have are bittersweet memories and the bills from the Betty Ford Center, where I spent half a year kicking a nasty pyridium habit. Now the IRS is after me for back taxes. They want me to do some free commercials for the National Kidney Dialysis Foundation.

Now I’m 26 years old, but I have the piping of a man three times my age. Each tardy, sporadic stream of lifeless urine spurting painfully from my once-mighty geyser reminds me of my all too short glory years. And I ask you as I ask myself every night, holding my Colt 45 to my head — much like the tortured soul Mel Gibson portrays in Lethal Weapon — is it more ironic or fitting that my life has gone down the drain?