When I was seven or eight, during the time when I went through a lazy phase of my life, I developed a habit of holding my urine. This happened because I was too lazy to go to bathroom when my body gave me its first signal. As a consequence, I was often found frantically running to the nearest bathroom in the last minute.
When the school was dismissed, in my head, I always knew that I should go to bathroom before leaving for home, but when my friends came to meet me to walk back home together, a sense of laziness would overcome me. “I can wait until I get back home,” I would tell myself and without a visit to bathroom, I would start walking back home with my friends.
Then toward the end of our journey, I would start to feel the emergency. While my friends talked and walked slowly, I would become restless, moving my legs and running on the spot, trying to distract myself from my body’s need. I would act cool until the moment I parted with my friends, but as soon as they were out of my sight, I would dash to my house.
I rang the doorbell, and when my mother answered, I would tell her
“Bathroom emergency, bathroom emergency! Open the door!”
When my mother opened the door, before she could say anything, I would run inside, into the bathroom.
Sometimes, however, when I came back home with the high level bathroom emergency, my mother was out on an errand. It was before the time I carried a spare key, and I had to wait for her return in order to enter the house. This was the most challenging part because at this point, I could barely hold it back.
In front of our house, there was a bush of plants and trees leading up to our garden. Checking that there was nobody around, I would crouch down behind this bush and fulfill my mission. Tension released, I could wait for my mother’s return in peace.
Even after such incidents, I still didn’t learn my lesson. This bathroom emergency ritual continued for a few years before I finally grew out of that lazy phase of my life.