Day Fifty-Three: She Won't Let Me Pee

8/5/14, 5:26 AM PDT

Woke up to a beautiful, beautiful breakfast, compliments of our hotel.

Mmm, stale bread.

Yeah, it plenty sucked. But hey, they gave us three cups of pineapple juice, two of which I drank since my sister doesn't really like them.

10 minutes later, those pineapple juice cups would almost destroy me.

So as usual, we passed security checkpoints in the airport and waited in line to check in to our flights. Two problems though. One: The queue was around 10, 15 people long. Two:

My bladder was full to bursting.

You'd think that with 15 people in line in front of us, each taking on average three minutes to check in their bags and get their boarding passes, I would have enough time to get out of line, go to the bathroom, and come back before it's our turn. And I tried.

Too bad the only bathrooms in the entire airport are in areas that REQUIRE YOU TO HAVE A BOARDING PASS. The biggest tease? One of the bathrooms was literally STEPS AWAY FROM THE BORDER BETWEEN BOARDING PASS AND NON BOARDING PASS AREA. The only thing standing between me and an empty bladder were ten paces and a lady security guard checking people's boarding passes.

You'd think she would be reasonable. I was wearing an easily identifiable shirt (the green CWC club shirt) and there was literally nothing in that area that a potential terrorist could destroy that would cost millions of lives. So I ask her if I could just go to the bathroom (again, literally steps away from her) and walk right back to my spot like an innocent, harmless civilian.

"No boarding pass, no entry. No exceptions."

"Okay, are there any other bathrooms nearby?"

"This one."

She points to the damn bathroom that's RIGHT NEXT TO HER. The bathroom that I WAS TRYING TO GET TO IN THE FIRST PLACE. It's like she's just taunting me with reminders that it exists but never giving me the satisfaction of actually using it.

Basically.

I asked again if I could use it. And she turns around, faces me, and goes:

"Sir, I don't want to have to tell you again. No boarding pass. No entry. No exceptions."

I kid you not, when she said that, she let no less than FOUR people slip past into the boarding pass area. This wasn't a security checkpoint, mind you. She wasn't stamping boarding passes, there were no metal detectors to pass through, it was pretty much a Sims-style barrier composed of a bunch of chairs tied together with yellow caution tape with a gap in it wide enough for one security guard that thought I was a terrorist warlord even though the only thing exploding about me was my bladder.

Me in about fifteen seconds.

In the end, I had to wait THIRTY MINUTES. My mom commented that I was sweating while waiting in line and I'm not entirely sure if that's from the humidity, the heat, or my kidneys crying in agony. But I got my boarding pass, waved it at the guard's stupid face, and finally made it to the bathroom.

Inside the airport (after passing some ACTUAL security checkpoints), I ate delicious ramen then explored a bit. Found a pizza guy that looked like he was trying to suppress a 'Nam flashback.

Mamma mia.

Eventually boarded the plane. Finally got a much covered window seat this time, where I got to snap this pretty picture of what look like the puffiness clouds ever.

I didn't know I lived in a Miyazaki film.

Arrived in Butuan an hour or so later, finished the day by reading a bit of A Thousand Splendid Suns.




RFotD: If I tried to cite where I got the pictures that I found on the Internet, this process would take ten more minutes.

SGAT: More blogging.