Monday, 18th August, 2003 – I’m Jon. I’m disgusting

My steady descent into the gutter has begun.

Each of us has certain core values - principles that make us who we are. Principles that, if transgressed, necessitate a complete re-appraisal of oneself as a person. So it was with a sense of detached horror – as if outside my own body, watching myself in some terrible nightmare – that, on Saturday night, I knelt down in a deserted train carriage, unzipped my trousers, and pissed into a bottle like some filthy bum.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. It was a squalid end to a great evening. For a delayed birthday treat, Jane and I went with David (better known as the literary powerhouse behind popular website ‘Punks Cruising For Burgers’ (LINK)) and Jo to Andrew Edmunds (LINK) restaurant in Soho. Surrounded by dressed-down media types, we were served delicious food by a friendly man in shorts. We even made a wine-related faux pas, by reacting with surprise when the bottle of rioja we ordered was white as opposed to red. Slightly embarrassing at the time, but the very fact that I had been involved in a wine-related, trendy-restaurant-based mix-up made me feel sophisticated, and like a big man.

It was the kind of evening that I wouldn’t have enjoyed in my teens, and made me feel better about getting older. Sitting, eating nice food with friends, including a friend I’ve known since I was 13, put the whole notion of ageing in context. I am this age because I am meant to be. Getting older doesn’t mean getting worse – it just means adding new experiences to those you already have. Ageing is improvement, not decline. It is all good. Definitively.

One of the best features of ‘Andrew Edmunds’ is that they don’t rush you through your meal and out of the door. You’re given time to breathe between courses, and the evening stretches out in a relaxing, indulgent way. But, since the last fast train back to Guildford leaves just before midnight, we had to drink our coffee quite quickly and go. Crucially – and with a disastrous lack of foresight – I rushed out without going to the toilet, assuming that I would either have time to go at Waterloo (punny) or that I’d just go on the train.

When we reached Waterloo, we had just missed the last fast train, and the only remaining ones were local services that stopped at 12 or 13 stations before reaching Guildford in just over an hour. One was due to leave in two minutes, and the next one was not for a good 20 minutes after that. So, with half a bottle of wine and 2 large glasses of water sloshing around inside my bladder, we ran to catch it, jumping on as the guard blew his whistle.

The discomfort made itself known at Wimbledon, began to nag at me at Worcester Park, and had reached crisis point by Epsom. And not just any crisis point. I have been known, when certain that an chance to urinate will come in the near future, to spurn immediate opportunities to do so, in what is probably a slightly worrying and masochistic game of self-denial. But there was no way that I could turn this into a fun exercise in deferred gratification. Rather than slightly relishing the discomfort, knowing that it was a precursor to a long and satisfying horse-piss in the comfort of my own home, the ominous throbbing in my bladder seemed far more likely to be a precursor to a night in casualty unless something was done right away.

Despite my having impatiently shushed away all her previous suggestions as to how to remedy the situation (‘Why don’t we just get off now – the next train comes through here, and we’ll only be waiting 20 minutes”, “No, shut up, I’m fine!”), Jane offered me an ingenious but humiliating lifeline. The carriage was now completely empty; she had a half-full bottle of Evian in her bag. The choice seemed clear – swallow pride, or die here in agony.

Decanting the remainder of the water into an empty Doctor Pepper bottle retrieved from a nearby bin, she handed me the bottle with a grim ‘You know what you have to do’ smile. I walked down the carriage, placed myself between two seats, got down on one knee, and unzipped my fly.

I was overcome by an almost narcotic bliss as my very-yellow urine splashed satisfyingly into the bottle. The hearty plonk-plonking noise, and the warmth as it filled up in my hand were deeply, unexpectedly fulfilling.

‘Woah, this is getting pretty full!’ I thought to myself. I broke into a smile at the thought of returning to Jane with a half-litre bottle of warm, frothy, nearly-orange urine in my hand.

‘Woah, this is really getting pretty damn full!!’

‘Wow. It’s full’.

And I hadn’t finished.

There was more to come, and there was no way I could stop now. So there was only one choice. Retrieving the Doctor Pepper bottle – now half full with water – from the bin, I took one last look at my reflection in the train window. I knew that this was the last time I would ever see what I now call ‘Old Jon’.

Returning to my position, I addressed the Doctor Pepper bottle. To my horror, I realised that this bottle had a far smaller aperture. While I could rest quite happily on the lip of the Evian bottle and enjoy the ride, using the Doctor Pepper bottle would require a steady hand and nerves of steel.

I am sorry to say that I was not man enough to pull this manoeuvre off. What with the rocking and swaying of the train, the uncertain fit of cock and bottle (I’ve been to a pub called that), and my trembling hands, there was a certain amount of…sprayage.

Ordeal over, I returned to my seat a broken and piss-spattered man. Wrapping the bottles in a plastic bag, I briefly considered taking them with me and disposing of them at home. But no. That was something that Old Jon would have done. I placed them back into the bin with the steely resolve of a man who knows that life is suffering, and that I, New Jon, was simply doing what I was put here on earth to do. Deposit bottles of my own urine in public places.

That is all.