Gigi Pee Pee

Me at the "false alarm"

My husband likes this picture of himself.

I stopped working the day before my due date because I am a powerhouse.  I was a week overdue so, I sat on my couch and waited for my baby to arrive, which was kind of boring. People kept texting me. "Have you had the baby yet?" My thought was, "Bitch, when the baby happens you'll know. I promise."

I woke up one of those boring mornings, climbed out of bed, and some liquid fell out of me. It was brown. Was this labor? I called my husband, sent him into a panic, he came home from work and we went to the ER. After a couple of hours and tests the labor and delivery department told me that I was in fact, not in labor, and that I had in fact peed on myself.

Pee and me have a history. When I was in kindergarten I was called Pee Pee by a kid named Nacho. I hated being called Pee Pee especially because I was being teased by a kid named Nacho. The only insult I could come up with was, "You want some cheese with your Nachos?" This did not phase him.

Another time with me and pee was when I was playing Sardines with my after-school program when I was about six? I was the one hiding and people had to find me. I had to pee but was unwilling to give up where I was in order to urinate, so I rationalized that if I peed with my pants on that the fabric would collect the pee and I would empty it out after I was found. So, I peed. The fabric did absorb the pee, but it didn't work in the way I had expected.

When I was eight I lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of kids my own age within blocks of each other. We would play until we were called in for dinner. I am not sure why I had decided not to go home to relieve myself but I remember running home about to explode. I turned the corner of my driveway, jumped over the flower bed, went to turn the knob of my front door, and found it locked. My front door was made of glass, so I could see inside. I did not see my mother. I did the pee pee dance and started to bang on the glass. BANG BANG BANG BANG! I saw my mother turn the corner of the hallway. When she saw me she rushed to open the door. I was so relieved that I peed on myself.

My mother woke up once to me banging around the hallway in the middle of the night. She got up as the banging stopped and found me in the piano room, pants dropped, and about to pee in the piano bench. She stopped me. I didn't pee.

I went to college in New York and would come home twice a year: Christmas and Summer. It was very hard to come home during the winters because I would fly TWA and their hub was Chicago, so I would occasionally miss my connecting flight due to inclement weather. I missed a flight and there were no more flights going to my parents location. So, I got a flight to Las Vegas that connected to San Francisco. SF is a 2.5 hour drive from my parents house, but I had no money and couldn't afford a hotel. When I arrived at the Vegas terminal all I had was the change in my pocket. It sucks when you have no money and slot machines outline the terminal. This is back when there were smoking sections in terminals and when I was a smoker. I decided to purchase the largest soda at McDonald's with the change I had in my pocket. I sat in the smoking section of their terminal, read The Great Gatsby (which would change my life) and smoked the last of my Parliament 100's. I was enraptured by the book as I finished my large soda. I couldn't stop turning the pages. I decided to call my mother to let her know how amazing The Great Gatsby is. I used a pay phone because at the time you could afford to be against cell phones. It was my last quarter. As I was on the phone with my mother I started to get the urge to pee. The entire soda I consumed was knocking on my bladder's door. I kept talking to my mother until my bladder slowly made it's way to answering my urine's incessant knocking. I didn't want to hang up because it was my last quarter. It didn't occur to me that I could call back collect. I hung up the phone and dashed to the restroom. As soon as I opened the stall I was relived when I glimpsed the toilet and I peed all over my jeans.
I had no extra clothes. It takes a long time for jeans to dry. I tried to dry them with the air dryer, paper towels, the whole shebang, but they were still wet. I gave up at went back into the terminal. I finished my last cigarette and let the rest of the The Great Gatsby soothe me as my jeans dried. I still had a long journey to go in my soiled jeans. I feel very sorry to whomever sat next to me on the flight and even more sorry for my step father who had to pick me up smelling the way I smelled. I wish that I hadn't wasted my change on that soda.

But, the mother of all of my pee stories was when I went to visit my BFF in Oakland. He and his boyfriend had just bought a new home. I was their first house guest. We danced, we drank, we sang, we drank, and I passed out on their couch. When I woke up I was alone in their living room and my pants were undone. I went to their downstairs bathroom to pee and then ventured up to my actual room and fell asleep. When my BFF woke up he walked into his new pristine kitchen and found the stove open, one of his linen drawers open, and a pool of water on the floor. He thought nothing of it. He started to clean the water off the floor and noticed that the white paper towels were absorbing a yellow liquid and then noticed that linen drawer was damp. He immediately woke me up laughing hysterically, "Did you pee in my new kitchen?" I gave him a blank stare. I had no idea what he was talking about. We determined that in my sleep I had thought the linen drawer was the toilet, and that I must have held onto the stove for support as I peed in it. His revenge was that he texted and called all of his friends poking fun at what I had done. It had been years since I had been Gigi Pee Pee, but I couldn't blame my BFF for calling me Pee Pee in the years following my peeing in the kitchen incident.

After all, I have always been Gigi Pee Pee.

Do you love it? I love it? I'm having a baby at Ross

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I get compliments about my attire all the time and I always tell the person complimenting me that I got it at Ross. In the 90's some genius came up with the add campaign,

"Do you love it?"

"I love it."

"I got it at Ross!"

To this day whenever I get a compliment from a Ross purchase I hear that simple jingle in my head. I am not the kind of person who is proud at paying a shit ton of money for an item of clothing. I am proud to pay a little amount for a one of a kind item. Ross is one step up from finding a gem at a thrift store. When you find something at Ross there are no duplicate items like in most department stores, so it feels special and unique.  Here's an example of the genius campaign slogan. This one is for Father's Day.

                                    

 

My mother is a bargain shopper. We always skip to the back of the store to check the clearance rack. Why pay full price one week to have an item go on sale the next? We both share a love for Ross.

 

We were in Camarillo, California visiting family and I was nine weeks pregnant. This was the weekend that I would tell my parents. I was planning to lead with some joke and show them my sonogram. But that half ass plan flew out the window when my mother decided to take me clothes shopping at Ross. As I was looking for clothing I thought about what kind I could get that would accommodate my growing size but I could also wear after the pregnancy. So, I gathered up some random clothes to try on and headed to the dressing room with my mother.

 

My mother and I follow the same trying on routine we have performed since I can remember: if we find something we like we ask the other one to give it a look see. My mother was changing across the hall from my dressing room. I found a striped toga thingy that I thought would be appropriate for before/after pregnancy. I asked my mother to give it a look see, we both opened our doors, she gave it a nod, and I gave an hers a oh-no! and in unison we shut our doors and began trying on our next items. But, I needed my mother's advice, so I decided to coyly ask her questions while looking at myself in the mirror at the toga, "Do you think that toga will look good on me if I get fatter?"

"Fatter?"

"Yeah, you know, if I gain weight?"

"You can't afford to get any fatter. What do you mean fatter?"

"You know...fatter?"

"What do you mean? Like Alden and Allie fat?" Alden and Allie are my cousins. Allie was fat because Allie was pregnant.

"Sort of."

"What!" The high shrill of my mother's 'what' probably alarmed all of the Ross customers inside the women's dressing room, yet she continued, "What?!"

In unison again we opened our doors, but this time I was still in the toga and my mother had no clothing on to show me. There she stood: in her mismatched bra and panties, wide-eyed, almost drooling. "You're kidding me?"

"Mom!" I looked around the dressing room hallway.

"You're kidding me!"

"Nope."

"Oh, that's so cool." My mother then proceeded to walk across the hall into my dressing room. She hugged me and kept repeating, "That's so cool." She didn't bother to shut the door, so I closed it for her. There's a certain point when you're hugging your almost naked mother that you want to release. It was a little awkward especially because I'm the kind of person that is not so wild about sentiment when it comes to all things girly like: hope chests, weddings, and babies. I remembered this as my mom kept saying, "That's so cool." Was it cool? I know now that the answer is yes, but then, I was a little overwhelmed by the pregnancy. I mean, I am not Money Bags Malone. In order to have my mother quit the embrace I politely asked her,

"Mom, do you want to wear some clothes on your way back?"

"Nah." My mother sauntered into the dressing room hallway in her undergarments a new woman, a future grandmother.She bought me all my clothes that day. I get compliments on them. Every girl should tell their mom they're pregnant while clothes shopping, because your mom can't help herself. And why put her out and make her buy you stuff at Nordys? My advice: tell her at Ross.