Urinating Alfresco

The older one gets, bodily elimination activities can become increasingly pleasurable, although middle-of-the-night urinations and incidents of constipation can sometimes spoil the fun. For older men (I'm one), the act of peeing can be either relaxing or apprehensive, depending upon how tight the prostate gland is clamping down on the urethra. 

One of my most enjoyable urinations occurs on those evenings when I partake of a hot tub, just prior to sinking into the bath. I am beginning to mentally and physically relax, to release various tensions, knowing that in a few minutes I will be lowering my body into the blessed healing waters. But first, let me eliminate any urine lurking in my bladder. So I stand in the yard and let go, with a most pleasant feeling coming over me.

Just before a recent hot tub plunge, I was eliminating the yellow liquid, letting go its last remains, feeling the tension drain from my mind, as the pee flowed to the ground. I was content. All was well with the world, at that moment.

As I finished peeing and headed for my bath, I wondered why the act was so pleasurable—far more so than peeing indoors. Then it hit me that while taking a leak outside, decorating the lawn with my liquid deposit, I didn't have to aim! Men experience constant derision from the distaff side of their household for peeing on the toilet seat—and frankly most of them deserve it. Conscientious men—I surely try to be one—try hard not to decorate the toilet seat, say by carefully lifting it up first, but sometimes our aim is off.

Urinals are definitely preferable to toilets, because aim is hardly an issue there. But nothing beats outdoor pissing. I can simply let it go, with no concern, other than wetting my shoes. I can be utterly free, turn in any direction, with no concern. It's much better even than a urinal.

But as I pondered the issue that evening, I could see that there are other advantages to an alfresco urination, besides being carefree about one's aim: it also makes good ecological sense. For one, urine is an excellent plant fertilizer—it contains nitrogen and phosphorus; necessary for plant growth. Norwegian researchers have pointed out that human urine, combined with wood ashes, gives plants the three core nutrients they require. For a few years now, I have decorated our vegetable garden with wood ashes and pee. The veggies thrive, thanks to those Scandinavian ecologists.

The other ecological benefit to pissing outdoors is the savings of water to flush a toilet, which just adds more burden to sewage treatment. Some people are mindful of the wastage of water by placing a sign over the toilet that suggests, “If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.” Good advice, especially during water shortages. This practice, however, can make for an odoriferous bathroom and stubborn yellow stains in the toilet bowl. Piss outdoors, and these problems vanish.

So an alfresco pee is both relaxing and beneficial to the environment. But there's yet more: it is fun! I call this aspect of the act “target practice.” If I'm not relieving myself in the dark, I often gaze downwards, to see where my stream is going. As mentioned earlier, I don't want to be so casual that I pee on my shoes. If, with my lowered gaze, I happen to spot an ant, I find it great fun to douse it with my yellow stream. That may sound a little cruel, but ants are used to encountering some disgusting things down there on the ground. Maybe they even enjoy the nitrogen bath.

It's also fun to target plants. As I described above, my pee is nourishing for some plants...trees especially. But uric acid can damage tender plant leaves. When fertilizing the garden, therefore, I'm careful not to empty pee jugs on delicate vegetables. For every desirable garden plant, however, there are two or three weeds that are very much undesirable. I like to bathe said weeds with my pee, and if I do it diligently for a few days in a row, I can cause a noxious weed to wilt and die. My success is quite dependent on rain, however. If my application of several coats of urine gets rinsed away by rain, I literally get washed out. I must start my plant target practice all over again. Oh, well, it's work that someone has to do.

My target-practice peeing described above is mostly a warm-weather activity. Winter brings yet another entertaining peeing pastime, when snow and ice are present. Making holes in the snow is fun. It can even become an artistic pastime, depending on the contents of my bladder. For small amounts, I try for perfect holes. For a full bladder I might try to draw a flower or write my name. (There's a 50-year-old joke about Jack Kennedy walking outside the White House with a cabinet member and getting angry when he sees his brother Bobby's name written in the snow. When the aid asked him why he was upset, JFK responded that he recognized that Bobby's name was written in Jackie's handwriting.) Another fun game is to pee on chunks of ice—trying to melt them down or slowly bore a hole.

I sometimes feel a little bad for women, who are by and large unable to engage in alfresco urinating. Sure, nothing keeps them from relieving themselves outside, but Nature did not gift them with a tool for aiming their liquid stream. It's solely a male pleasurable pastime.