Several friends have alerted me to a remarkable news story: Dutch trains will provide urine bags.
No, these aren't free samples - it's because 16% of commuter trains do not have toilets. If a power failure happens, you might "have to wait three or four hours" before you have a chance to pee.
Here's a bag. Go at it.
Quote:
"The portable urinal, made by the firm Travel John, is designed for the use of "anyone without access to traditional or sanitary facilities", according to the company's website.
The bag is attached to a spout and filled with a powdered substance that turns into a gel, AFP news agency reports."
End quote.
[Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15220297.]
Frankly, the idea is more than a little bit loopy. There is no spot in Europe's most densely populated country where you are more than fifteen minutes away from a toilet.
If the train stalls in between stations, you will be surrounded by green pastures. Miles and miles of dairy land on either side of the train.
Clearly the Dutch railway assumes that there will be a reason why you don't just whizz in the grass.
Angry cows.
Fastidious creatures, those Dutch bovines.
Given a choice between an angry cow, and the complete lack of any privacy whatsoever in a train car, you would naturally choose the train car.
Moo!
Either that or Dutch authorities fully expect the Zombie Apocalypse to hit right during the power failure.
Shouldn't pee outside, there's a horde of hungry flesh-eaters besieging the train.
Why not tinkle out the side where the zombies aren't?
Can't. Angry cows.
Of course, if you're a woman, the very idea of sticking any peeful part of your body into the cold wet Dutch night outside the train, especially when there are angry cows and hungry zombies around, is absurd. Better squat over a spouted container filled with powder that turns into gel.
Your fellow-passengers do not mind. They're all incredibly impressed that you didn't wet yourself when you realized you were surrounded by cows and zombies.
They did. Despite the bags so helpfully provided.
They gaze at you admiringly, and they smell bad.
Not the love you wanted.
You have a choice: stay inside the train with a bunch of affectionate cowards who reek of urine, OR assume that once the zombies and the cows find each other they'll be too busy arguing over who gets to despoil a train filled with sodden stinky whifflings to bother about the lone human who pissed in a bag now trying to get away.
The zombies won't notice you because you have scant odour (unlike the rest of the passengers), and the cows won't mind, because you had the courtesy and foresight to whee in a bag.
Plus the character and determination which was required.
It was very gallant of you to do so.
The cows appreciate that.
The rambunctious Dutch teenagers on the train are now using that bag as a football.
Frankly, given the circumstances, you would be well-advised to head on foot to the nearest town or farmhouse. Those teenagers are collecting every filled-up urine-sack they can find and throwing them at each other, in an excess of youthful high spirits.
Something is bound to go wrong.
I remember once passing a gang of students from one of the Dutch vocational schools heading up the platform at a train station - Breda, I think - who were loudly singing an anthem about testicles as they headed home. Precisely the type of rowdy boys to use whiz baggies as projectiles. Especially if they are stuck in between towns ten minutes apart at the precise moment of the Zombie Apocalypse.
When Dutch youths get bored, you know what hits the fan.
Now there's a special container for that.
Thanks to Dutch foresight.
And zombies.
See, I would worry about the cows instead. Those beasts are going to be upset when a horde of the raggedy undead storms a stalled train all over their nice clean pasture. Urine soaked commuters, ravenous zombies, and bad-tempered bovines in the wet wet grass.
Whether or not there are flying pee packs, it ain't gonna be a pretty sight.
Dutch cattle, one naturally assumes, are armed and dangerous.
Stranger things have happened in the Netherlands.
That's why you now have a wee bag.
Use it in good health.
Dutch number one baggies would be perfect souvenirs, by the way.
Imagine the happy faces of your relatives back home.
Unusual mementoes of a unique country.
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COFFEE, SEVERAL CUPS OF TEA, MORE COFFEE
A dream involving shenanigans in the real estate office. It's a purely imaginary real estate office, as I have never been there, so some...
5 comments:
And then there's this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_A7YeOhfs
That comment should have been on the previous post, of course.
At first I thought, "why introduce zombies?" The notion of high tech chamber pots is strange enough as it is.
Then the penny dropped: you are of course using the zombies (which do not exist) as a metaphor for the meddlesome Eurocrats (all too abundant) that create these daft procedures.
Well done.
M.
"The notion of high tech chamber pots is strange enough as it is."
It's not so strange. Such devices have been around for years, used mostly by campers who might not want to have to leave their tent in the middle of the night when nature calls, and it's a blizzard or a downpour. The gel that keeps the liquid from leaking, is a neat touch that I've never heard of before. I wish BOTH would provide a link to the vendors of these devices, I would like to stock up.
"Then the penny dropped: you are of course using the zombies (which do not exist) as a metaphor for the meddlesome Eurocrats (all too abundant) that create these daft procedures."
There's nothing daft about the procedure. Letting people out of a train to wander around on the tracks is what's nuts. Your train might be stalled out and immobile, but other trains are not necessarily in this condition. And they don't make a lot of noise to warn you that they're coming. Also, when the power comes back on, you can be sure that your stalled train will immediately move out to get people to their destinations. I can imagine the feeling standing there pissing into a ditch as my train starts to move without me on it.
I've been on more crippled trains than I care to admit. The best thing to do is to stay with the train and not leave until the crew brings up a bus or a rescue train. I think these things would be a great addition for our local commuter train operator, again, if BOTH could provide a link to the vendor, I would appreciate it greatly.
-CA
Don't get out of the train to pee. Just open the door. Aiming out the door is easier than aiming into a funnel.
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