My Cup Runneth Over
I never knew how difficult it
could be to pee while someone stared at my
crotch—until I joined the Navy. But I was a
quick learner. In fact, how to urinate with an
audience became my first lesson in the
military.
Great Lakes Recruit Training Center. Though San
Diego hosted one of the Navy's three boot camps,
the recruit depot saw fit to send me halfway across
the country for basic training: a half-hour north
of Chicago, just in time for winter. I joined a
busload of other nervous young men traveling from
O'Hare to Great Lakes, visions of every Hollywood
version of boot camp swirling through my mind. The
reality (as usual) proved far less dramatic. After
a couple of hours of paperwork and other
bureaucratic "hurry up and wait" exercises, we sat
in a large conference room while our new company
commander barked at us. But before we became his
children for eight weeks, we had one little task.
And it involved a little plastic cup.
The Navy's zero-tolerance policy with regard to
drugs meant regular, random urine tests throughout
one's active duty service. Generally, a roll of a
10-sided die determined the lucky winners; anyone
whose Social Security number ended in that number
had to report to the Master At Arms by the end of
the day and donate a specimen. For us fresh
recruits, all 10 numbers came up. We'd all been
exhaustively prescreened before even leaving our
hometowns, but we had one final hoop to jump
through, in case any of us had gone a little too
far overboard at our going-away parties.
Most of you reading this have probably had to
pee in a cup at one point or another, whether for
medical or pre-employment reasons. A nurse probably
gave you a plastic cup and sent you off to the
privacy of a bathroom. We quickly learned that
privacy is a civilian luxury. Lest some dishonest
recruit surreptitiously taint his urine in an
effort to foil the drug test, some lucky sailor got
to watch each and every one of us as we unzipped
our flies and did our business right in front of
him.
As might be expected, a handful of
us—including yours truly—experienced
performance anxiety. The stress of the day had
caught up to me, and the indignity of the situation
shocked my naïve sensibilities. Plus, from a
practical standpoint, the tank was pretty empty.
Fortunately, the sailors took pity on us and gave
us some time to work ourselves up to it. I quickly
downed six glasses of water and returned to the
conference room.
As the company commander and other staff members
alternately yelled and droned on, I felt an
increasing pressure build in my lower abdomen. I
looked around, wondering when I'd get my second
chance to provide a sample. An officer blathered on
about formations and general orders. Hello! I'm
ready for my close-up now! As we watched a
mind-numbingly boring training video about life
aboard ship, the pressure mounted. I squirmed in my
seat, trying to minimize the pain. Forget the
plastic cup and lack of privacy; at this point, I
could fill a bucket while a convent full of nuns
looked on.
Just as I was about to raise my hand and open
myself up to ridicule, the company commander
blessedly announced that those of us still waiting
to pee could try again. I stepped right up and got
to work. As the Master At Arms watched, I filled
the cup to the brim, confident I could have won an
Academy Award if there had been a category for Best
Performance by a Recruit in a Urination Role.
It didn't take me long to lock away my dignity
at the bottom of my sea bag. Survival in the Navy
required a thick skin. The episode with the plastic
cup on my very first evening as a seaman recruit
prepared me for other, even more undignified
episodes to come: being showered by JP-5 gas
turbine fuel during underway replenishment;
cleaning shower drains used by sailors who had
missed the comfort of female companionship for far
too long; and having my bunk splattered by puke
after a shipmate had enjoyed a liberty stop a
little too vigorously.
As advertised, it wasn't just a job, it was an
adventure.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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