I'm in Harvard Square every once in a while, and it came to me one day that one could make considerable money by parallel parking other people's cars. It seems that 50% of the populace has limited skills when it comes to parking properly.

You need to keep a hose hooked up with a sprayer nozzle, so that all you have to do is pick up the nozzle and squeeze when people decide to act like animals.

Just how old was this girl? And, was it broad daylight, night, or what?

You need a good flashlight. No harm done, you don't have to leave your front step, and it scrares the crap out of people.

"Oh, and she was 20-something ..."

Oh, ick! It occurred to me that this is the kind of situation where you'd want to turn the dog loose on somebody. But I don't suppose Lucy would be all that intimidating. You never know, though.

Yip! Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip!

Eeeek! Tiny little dog from Hell!

Perhaps confession is good for the soul. I hope so here's mine: while 7 months pregnant with my first child, I walked down to the park about 1/2 mile away. When suddenly I had to go. Chocolate. Oh God! What was I to do? Knock on a random stranger's door? I didn't have much time to think. I Knew that I couldn't make it home or any public place in time. If i knocked on a door and they said, "No." I might have an accident before I could reach cover. I went into an alley and prayed that no one would see me. I went down about four houses and there were 6 foot fences. It was broad daylight for goodness sakes! I could never have imagined that there was ever an excuse for my behavior. Oh well.

I had a few pee-ers at my house too. One man in a motorized wheel chair wheeled down the street, did a circle, pulled it out and started peeing. I felt a little bad for him considering he was in a wheel chair and went outside to ask him if he needed help or me to call someone. He ignored me, zipped up and rolled away.

Next one was a man who pulled up next to my house which is in a residential area, walked up to my fence and started to pee. I yelled, "excuse me" from my stoop and he actually had the nerve to turn for privacy and respond, "Do you mind?" He was annoyed at me for interrupting him. He then said, "I've been in the car for a long time. Some privacy would be nice!"

I never thought of taking pictures! Great idea!

My mom is a public peeer. Embarrassed us to death when we were little. I remember walking around Ascona when she had to go, so she peed on the side of the road.

I mean, if its urgent, if you've been holding it in a looong time and there's still no sign of a restroom... but...

... that was never the case.

Two memories of public peeing...

. On my first visit to Paris, in 1987, my girlfriend and I were on the upper platform of the Eiffel Tower, when we noticed a little boy jumping around and tugging on his mother's arm. She hustled him over to a corner of the platform where the poor little kid finally got some relief. We thought it was cute. (A not-so-found memory of Parisian peeing was from a subsequent trip, seeing a grizzled old codger let fly while standing in the Rue de Buci street market.)

. In 1989, I went with three friends to the Gorge Amphitheater for the first time, to see a great triple bill: John Hiatt, Robert Cray, and Stevie Ray Vaughn (just one year before Vaughn's unfortunate death.) The Gorge had only been open for a few years at that point and they hadn't quite worked out the kinks in getting people from the I-90 exit to the venue so traffic was at a crawl the entire way and it took close to an hour or so to cover that short distance. Needless to say, there weren't bathrooms around. Hardly any trees or bushes either; just open fields. When most people had to go, I presume they just went close to their vehicles but, every once in a while a guy would go out in one of the fields. At one point, we saw a girl run out into one of the fields and a few moments later, a group of about eight guys rushed out and and formed a circle around her. I thought that was very cool.

Or drop choc.

Eeewww. Such a bad phrase.

Yeah, but people in the middle of nowhere, or little kids who can't hold it as long, are not the same as an adult who just came out of a bar that had a bathroom!

Completely agree, Nicole. I was just reminded of those incidents...wasn't offering them as an excuse for what that woman did.

In the '90s, there were articles in the local newspapers about the need for public toilets in downtown Seattle. It took the city council about ten years to debate and study the issue. JCDecaux, the French company that has public toilets in Paris, and San Francisco, offered to provide some toilets for free (I think they were going to do maintenance too, but I'm not sure about that part), as long as they could put advertising on them. But Seattle apparently has a law against "kiosk advertising" (billboards are, of course, fine) and wasn't willing to make an exception for the proposed toilets so Decaux's offer was refused. The city finally decided to buy five very expensive toilets from some other manufacturer but then was incapable of keeping them from being overrun by hookers and drug users so, a few years later, they were auctioned off for a low price.

Somehow, Paris and San Francisco (and, I presume, some other cities as well) are able to maintain their public toilets for people to use. But, for reasons unknown (although incompetency is a good guess), Seattle was unable to do this.

> Eeewww. Such a bad phrase.

Same reaction, LTW. But I filed it away anyway, and will one day be glad to have it. Few things in life are certain, but inappropriate shit is one of them.

I wasn't criticizing Amy - it got the point across very well. I'm reasonably comfortable with discreet public urination, as long as it's not on my front doorstep and is only composed of rented beer, but shitting in public - really, no.

I filed it away too Crid, for the next time I want to shock my family. A slightly more subtle one is to excuse yourself from the table to "drop some kids off at the pool".

Not having to deal with this is one of the inconveniences of suburbia, I guess.