We’re driving on whatever the hell the name of the main road is that goes through Paris and I have to piss. There’s six of us in a car—me, my girlfriend, her friend Katty, Katty’s husband’s mother who has a name that I forget as soon as she says it, a dog named Ramses (I’m serious), and Katty’s husband’s father who will not let me piss. I think it’s a gas issue. He’s worried that if we exit, we might end up driving around for a bit looking for a place for me to relieve myself, so he’s telling me to hold it in. Except he’s doing this in French and no one speaks English in the entire car other than me and my girlfriend. She’s my translator. I’m telling her that I have five minutes max and I’m going to start peeing on the floor. She tells this to the women and instantly everyone starts talking in French at the same time.
I’m basically begging to pee.
This happened to me in Paris as well. You are not allowed to pee in Paris and you’re not able to pee when driving through Paris.
Ironically, the city starts with P.
It should be called Urine-aris.
Piss-aris.
Photograph by Amélie Jumel
The Eiffel Tower is the perfect landmark for the city. It’s the biggest phallic symbol in France and not once does yellow water start shooting out of its top. The Eiffel Tower has been holding it in for three hundred years or however long that thing’s been standing there erect with people killing themselves off of it on a yearly basis. Why all the Eiffel Tower suicides in its history? Because they all had to piss. They didn’t have money for the French restaurants that insist you pay them before using the toilet. I’ve seen those places. They have actual toilet bouncers. Guys who look like their mother was a frown and their father was a piece of metal.
I actually ran into a Paris bathroom one time so fast that the toilet bouncer couldn’t stop me from going in. He yelled on the other side while I peed a liter or mega-liter or whatever you call a lot of piss in France. Then I ran out before he could catch me, my girlfriend yelling for me to explain what happened and me yelling back, “I pissed for free! I pissed for free!”
We’ve been driving in the car now for an hour. I told them I had to piss an hour ago. It’s Easter weekend and the traffic is moving slow, but not so slow that we haven’t driven by eight exits with me pointing at each one, yelling, “La! La! We could go la!”
La is French for there.
“I’m singing ‘la la la’” and then I switch to angrily saying, “France!” as if I’m scolding the entire country.
He finally gives in and exits on a ramp.
I try to get out of the car and they scream for me to close the door. I tell them that I’ll just run to the side of the road. There are woods everywhere. I’ve seen people piss in the streets in Paris. And there’s a reason for that. Because they won’t let you piss indoors.
He keeps driving, taking me into a Parisian suburb where there doesn’t seem to be any forest whatsoever. I watch a hundred perfect trees for urination fade behind me, replaced by thick streets filled with wall. He pulls over and points to what he says is a perfect spot. It’s a business. He tells me to piss on the business. I figure this is my introduction to becoming French. The business has graffiti all over it, as if there is no respect for historical buildings made in the 1800s.
There is a bathroom somewhere within the building. I estimate where I think it might be and piss in its general direction. Paris’s wonderful graffiti of urine.
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Ron Riekki’s books include U.P.: a novel, The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works, and Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Amélie Jumel was born in Lille in northern France. After graduating from engineering school, she went to work and live in Asia. She fell in love with this region and with photography. She loves traveling and hunting for intriguing moments of life to capture. She always carries a camera with her, keeping an eye out for both moments of curiosity and of humor.