Anyone can adjust what’s on the runway for use in their everyday wardrobe. Obviously this is perfect for babysitting your new nephew, and this will have you turning heads after yoga in all the right ways, but what do you wear when things turn–as they so often do–completely to shit? This column is here to help. Welcome to Runway to (Things Just Got) Real Life. You’re welcome in advance.
What to Wear to: Pee outdoors
Summertime proper brings with it a lot of things. Some good (frozen treats in the park where no one is wearing a bra and everyone has a dog, somehow), some bad (four street closures in the downtown area in one weekend, f*ck my whole life) and some unavoidable, such as the likelihood that you will, at some point in the next two-to-three months, be forced to choose between “holding it” or peeing outside. Maybe you’re at a music festival. Maybe you’re camping. Maybe the line up for the bathroom is insanely long and you don’t even know what in the name of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland you will find at the end of it. Or maybe nature is just like, “Call me, maybe,” and you’re the kind of person who simply has to answer whenever/wherever.
I’m not good at peeing outdoors. The last time I did it I was 21 years old, huddled between two trucks in the back of a weird alley on Queen St. West while my friend whisper-screamed words of encouragement and I ruined a pair of sandals I really loved. It makes me nervous to do it: I feel like I can never find the right location and I spend the entire time picturing someone finding me with my butt a bit out, pee hitting the soil with that weird liquid thud noise it makes because women have to squat so close to the ground. Some women are incredible at it. They can “pop a squat” (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW!) anywhere, and they do. I am both repulsed by and obsessed with their abilities. You probably you know one of these Urinary Ninjas and you don’t even realize. They’re so good at peeing in public that you’d honestly never guess. I bet this is what they wear.
Throw them off the scent (literally and figuratively)
“You saw whom squatted in an alley between two pick up trucks? And you say she was… urinating? Quite everywhere? Oh, Carmichael, please. That’s impossible! I saw the woman in question just the other day and she was wearing a classy cocktail ring and carrying a nice little purse. The kind of girl who employs charming accessories like that simply couldn’t be involved with an outdoor number one situation. It was probably that tramp from downstairs. Or a small dog, maybe. Are you sure it wasn’t a dog, and she was walking it and it was peeing?” If you dress like a classy gentlelady, no one will ever suspect it was you who ruined the petunias after a few too many signature cocktails at that garden party. But this is not only about visual misdirection. We’re interested in olfactory deception as well, so please do consider a purse-sized perfume of some kind to mask any pee or “hiding in the bushes, communing with the fertilizer” type odours. I’m obsessed with Tokyo Milk’s Arsenic, but obviously your business is your business, so feel free to pick a signature outdoor wee scent of your own.
Bottoms up!
And off. Bottoms off, mainly, but that is not a saying. While cropped trousers of the kind Balenciaga and Chanel sent down the runway this S/S might seem ideal–a bit of an “everything’s coming up Milhouse” but with pee, is what I presume you’re picturing here–pants are your enemy in this situation. What we’re looking for is ease of removal, as well as ability to pretend you’re not doing what you’re clearly doing if someone catches you in media piss. Thus, the skirt. Or the casual, flow-y dress. An aggressive advanced move might be to wear a maxi dress and just go for it, but I think we can all agree that is a bit much and you’d definitely get some splashback. Proceed with caution in that respect, but definitely if you’re going to be outside and think you might need an outdoor widdle, eschew shorts or pants in the name of a simple dress or skirt. For the love of god, don’t even look at a bodysuit or romper. Use your brain.
Waterproof shoes probs
Summer time is a great time for jelly sandals, plus they are easy to wash in case of stray splashes. I’m pretty sure I had a friend who put hers in the dishwasher, once. Do not wear socks. Leather is not your friend, nor is hyper-absorbent canvas. It’s common sense, really. Stick with rubber or whatever Tevas are made of (pure, unfiltered hemp?), and you should be fine. Rubber boots and a peasant skirt are also helpful if you’re at a music festival and want someone to think you’re Sienna Miller circa 2007.
Be Pee-pared
Carry Kleenex with you in your purse or jacket at all times. This is what both the Boy Scouts and the hyenas from The Lion King were on about, and with good reason. You will never regret having some extra tissues in your bag, whether you need to do a last minute rogue droplets wipe before you can use a public toilet, or a friend starts unexpectedly crying in the movies, or you spill ketchup on yourself or OR OR OR OR. (That is not a seal noise, it is repetition being used to signifiy the multitudinous ways in which you might need a tissue. Bring some.) Those looking to be REALLY prepared might consider investing in one of the shockingly numerous funnel-like devices in existence that allow women to pee standing up, without getting rid of pants or bottoms. Is the cardboard P-mate, “invented by a creative Dutch woman … [and] is basically like a cardboard shoe with the toe cut off,” for you? Or is the Canadian-made Shewee more your style? Perhaps Gogirl for its medical grade silicone and patented “no mess” borders? Or pStyle‘s handy next-day shipping? Anyway, if you want to funnel your pee to the ground while standing up, you’ve got options.
I tried to look for important summer trends to tie in here, but the need for [s]pee[d] is older than the concept of fashion. Ideally we’d all walk around semi-nude and peeing freely as we liked! … Obviously that is not ideal, that is a paleolithic dystopia that sounds gross and smelly, but what I am getting at is that clothes and outdoor peeing are not particularly well-matched, much like manners and outdoor peeing, or seven beers and outdoor peeing, so I am sorry there have not been many references to what Dior was up to this season. Now get off the computer and go covertly pee in someone’s backyard! You’re #1! You’re #1!
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Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. She has also written for VICE, Huffington Post, and She Does the City. Follow her on Twitter @monicaheisey.
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