I’m not one who’s easily embarrassed. Ask anybody. Go ahead, I’ll wait....

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... As you’ve no doubt been told this is a truism. However, this was not the case recently. I work at a refrigeration and air conditioning wholesaler, which is just as exciting as it sounds. As it stands now, I have the title of Assistant Branch Manager, but this was not always the case. When I started with my company low these many six years ago I was the delivery driver. As such, I was subject to random drug testing, which is pretty common. I had taken exactly one of these when I had first been hired and hadn’t had to take one in my entire stint as a driver. Then, last week my boss comes up to me with this odd looking package and says, “I need you to do something for me.” Now usually this means one of two things: She forgot her knife again, or she needs the package put on the top shelf. (She’s not very tall.) Today this meant that my name had been picked in the random drawing for an all expenses paid trip to the piss tester, or as the medical field calls it, “occupational testing.” I’m not making that up; that’s what they call it. Guess they can’t put piss testers on their insurance paperwork or something.

Since my boss is cool, she says she’ll drive me over there and that afterwad we’ll go get lunch. I’m not sure if it was because she had confidence in my urine’s cleanliness or because she figured it was the last time she’d ever have to buy me lunch. Either way -- free lunch. We pull up to the “occupational testing lab,” and she says, “Make sure you get drug and alcohol. Both.” I found this contradictory to the whole process until I realized she meant that’s what tests I needed. Slightly dejected, I climbed the stairs to the second floor and presented the clerk/secretary/nurse with my paperwork and small plastic cup.

“Random drug screen?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

(This will be important later.)

“Follow me,” she says, which I do into one of those little rooms with the weird little table with the wax paper. “It’ll be just a minute.” So I wait. This is probably the worse part, in my opinion. If you’ve never had a drug test, this is what happens:

Eventually someone will come to get me and make me empty my pockets on the counter. He or she will lead me to a sink outside where they will make me wash my hands. This person will show me the little plastic cup that I am about to, in fact, pee into. “Does this look punctured or tampered with in any way?” the person will ask me. Of course it won’t. This person will open it and take out two smaller vials, place them on the counter, and lead me to a small bathroom where I will be told to “fill it to the 60 ml mark and don’t flush.”

(This also will be important later.)

After I filler up, I get to come out and immediately hand a perfectly wonderful, steaming hot cup of piss to what will undoubtedly be a fairly attractive young woman. She will take me back over to said sink and allow me to again wash my hands, which will, without fail, be covered in my own piss. This is when I get to have the conversation about my pee.

She fills the two vials there at the counter with the pee from the cup, in front of me and whoever else isn’t disgusted enough to look away. Then the conversation goes something like this:


“Is this your pee?”

“Yes, that’s my pee.”

(Puts sticker on vial #1.) “Is this your pee?”

“Yes, also my pee.”


(Puts sticker on vial #2.) “Do the numbers on the stickers on your pee match the paperwork about your pee?”

So forth and so on, until eventually I even get to initial my pee. All in all a very rewarding experience.

Back to me sitting in the room...

Finally, much like the above scenario, someone comes to get me, empty the pockets, wash the hands, get the cup, in the shitter, and... nothing... not even a drop. “Well. This is problematic,” I think out loud. I come out and hand the fairly attractive young woman a perfectly wonderful, steaming hot cup of absolutely nothing.

“I got nothin’,” I say.

She gives me the look that says, “Others have tried that and failed.” I’m about to plead my case, but she tells me to go sit down, gives me a small plastic shot glass for water, and tells me to come get someone when I think I’m “ready.” So not only do I have to give her my pee, but now she thinks I’m some kind of crack head. And that’s not even true anymore!

So I do like 37 shots of water and still nothing. I have no idea how long I’ve been in the room now, and my boss is still waiting out in her car. Right about then is when I realize why it is that I don’t have to pee and why this is going to be worse than I could ever possibly imagine...

I can’t piss because I have to shit.

I feel myself get real cold and start to sweat at the same time. I don’t know what to do so I drink another shot of water. I think about how I can’t flush when I go in the room, and I do another shot of water. I can feel the panic creeping in. I bear down hard to see if I can pee in my pants a little. Nothing. I do another shot of water. It’s starting to hurt now, but I do another shot of water. The room starts to spin as the walls close in. I run to the front desk and tell them I’m ready even though I’m not. We go through the cup routine again, and I’m back in the bathroom trying desperately to pee into a little cup without shitting my pants. It’s not happening. I open the door again with an empty cup. There to greet me again is the fairly attractive young woman with that same look on her face. She takes me over to the sink to wash my hands another time. As I’m standing there next to her washing my hands I realize I have no choice. There is only one answer. Only one thing that can be done.

“Uh...listen. I don’t mean to be gross or anything...but I don’t think I can do this unless I sit down...you know what I mean?”

“Oh.”

“I know I’m not supposed to flush...”

“That’s okay...go ahead.”

“Thank you.”

She opens another cup, and I trudge to the ever-present bathroom... Where I proceed to sit and shit so I can pee into a cup while a fairly attractive woman is waiting right on the other side of the door. I finish the process, which has taken over an hour by the way, and quietly leave. But wait there’s more. I get out to the car where my boss is waiting and explain that the reason she had to wait is because I couldn’t pee. That’s all she needed to know. After she’s done laughing she asks if I remembered to ask for drug and alcohol both.

So I went back again today. The fairly attractive young woman remembered my name.