Posted by Southernboy35 on February 15, 2002 at 20:59
Any of you guys (well, women, too, though it would be more difficult!) keep a bottle or jar beside your bed in case nature calls in the middle of the night? I don't know about you, but I hate getting out of bed at 4 or 5 AM (and it REALLY annoys my big ol' dog who sleeps on the foot of my bed, and no, we are not "intimate," LOL), but if my bladder pressure is sufficient to wake me, I've got to take care of it or I can't get back to sleep. So I got a plastic one-quart bottle (wide-mouthed, wise guys) with a tightly fitting screw-off lid. A much bigger pleasure than I would have imagined, and I recommend it highly if you can't always "make it through the night."
I find I use it 4 or 5 nights a week, most often at around dawn. I'm sure my bladder capacity is smaller now than it was when I was 18 (or maybe I drink more beer now), but I rarely had to get up at that age. But now that I'm nearly twice that age, I find that as little as 16 ounces of urine in my bladder will wake me up; most often the bottle contains 18-24 ounces when I empty it the next morning. Three or four times in the past year, I've had to "go" twice during the night, which meant I had to get up and empty the bottle. Guess I could use a half-gallon jug, but that seems excessive. My "extremely urgent" daytime capacity, by the way, is about 34 ounces. But I get quite uncomfortable at anything over 24 ounces.
I'd say about once a week, the clock radio will wake me, and I'll look over to see a 2/3 filled bottle (sometimes still warm), and I won't remember having used it! I guess the behavior has become rote.
And on those rare lazy Sundays, I'll sleep til 8, get up and empty the bottle, put on enough clothing to get the paper from the driveway, make a pot of coffee and pour it into the thermos, put on some jazz or classical, take my clothes back off, and crawl back into bed with my paper, my coffee, my dog, and of course my empty bottle, where I'll remain til 9:30 or 10. The height of indolance!
Email: