Wherein I reveal how I know that my bladder holds more than a pint of urine

Mine's a pint, landlord!

So sometimes since the kids have been born I’ve found myself sleeping downstairs. Sometimes the bed’s been too crowded and sometimes The Wife^™ has sleepily told me to go get some rest or whatever. Sometimes, it’s been a night of hell. There’s been screaming and shouting and thwarted attempts at nappy changes and all sorts of wee-small-hours crap that is probably familiar to any parent.

Now, I’m not posh enough to have a downstairs bog. And on occasion I’ve found myself needing – desperately needing – a slash in the night. If you’ve been Sent Downstairs to sleep, you’re looking at a whole bag of trouble if you then flounce upstairs to relieve yourself and wake everybody up. That would be A Bad Thing and could easily lead to murder.

Firstly, the stairs protest against your 15 stone+ bulk by squeaking like that dude who got bummed off of hillbillies in Deliverance so you don’t want to go upstairs in the first place. Secondly, your bathroom light is attached to a noisy fan which activates when you turn it on, so unless you want to piss on your feet in the dark you’re going to be creating yet more noise. Thirdly, you sleep naked: that means stepping into the garden to relieve yourself into a bush is a no-no. Maybe because it’s too cold, or maybe just because you don’t really want Mary next door to look sleepily out of her window and find you wazzing on her fence in the buff.

Hmmm.

Now I don’t really want to make wee-wee in the sink, because that seems somehow sinister. So what’s a guy to do? I decide to wee in a glass. A pint glass. Surely you can’t wee more than a pint?? And I can tip it down the toilet in the morning and no-one will be woken and my dignity spared.

Ah, dear reader, it is through such experiences that humankind improves its knowledge of the cosmos. In is through the outcome of this piece of ad-hoc science  in particular – albeit conducted by chance – that I can tell you that a bladder can hold a fair bit more than a pint. I stand there, panicking quietly as the glass nearly reaches the top.

It’s quite difficult to stop the stream, as any man will attest, but with a massive effort of will I succeed. Only now I’m stood with a pint of piss in one hand and approximately another half pint still trying to exit me via my wang. So it was that I found myself tipping it down the sink after all that effort and inner embarrassment and topping it half back up again afterward.

So there you have it, I can reveal to you that my bladder will hold 1.5 pints of fluid. Albeit with a great deal of discomfort.