When In Madrid

Have you ever been to an event that makes you play an icebreaker game? A common one is this: “Write down one unique fact about yourself and we’ll guess who each fact belongs to.” Sometimes it’s worded more like two truths and a lie. (Personally, I think this is just a sneaky way to gauge who the natural liars are, but I digress.) Either way, the fact that I usually share is this: “I once wet my pants in the streets of Spain.”

During my senior year of high school, I had two best friends, Emily and Imma. The three of us went to different high schools, but typically spend the weekends and all summer bouncing around each other’s houses. When it was time to go to College, Em and I went to Auburn (War Damn Eagle) and Imma followed her free spirit heart and went abroad to Madrid. For Spring Break our freshman year, Em and I somehow convinced our parents that we should be allowed to go to Spain. Alone. Now yes, we were 18, but we studied French. We were pretty naïve, and due to the rules surrounding Imma’s program, we wouldn’t actually be staying with her. And she would still be in class. But what could go wrong? Seriously this sounded like the best idea to us. So we hopped on a plane and flew from Atlanta to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Madrid. Cell phones didn’t work internationally at the time, so we arrived in Spain with a few words (Hola, cerveza) under our belt and the expectation that when we stepped off the plane, Imma would be waiting for us. Well she wasn’t, and we didn’t know how to get in touch with her. So these two coeds just wandered the airport for a bit while we waited for her to show up. I should add here that Em really stood out in Mardrid: tall, blonde and blue eyed, there were many men very willing to approach us and promise us a ride. When Imma did show up, we were whisked away for a weekend whirl of Madrid Tourism. We ate paella, we drank sangria, we toured the Prado, learned about Dali, rode the metro, watched flamenco dancers and adamantly refused to attend a bull fight. I even pierced my eyebrow on a fleeting moment of European individuality. On our last night in town, we stayed at Imma’s apartment past curfew. Em fell asleep while Imma and I ate our way through her stash of European chocolate and a jar of JIF peanut butter. When we were finally kicked out, a groggy Emily and I walked the dark, foreign street back to our hostel. We were less than halfway there when we were hit by a fit of giggles. I can’t remember for the life of me why we started laughing, but we sure as hell couldn’t stop. I remember crossing my legs, standing in the middle of the road on top of a man hole begging Emily to stop chuckling, but it was too late. I had to pee. Nothing was open. We were too far out of town and not yet to our hostel. The giggling was contagious at that point and I laughed so hard I knew I was going to pee my pants. I closed my eyes while the warmth ran down my leg. Though I was laughing like a manic I was silently urging my 18-year-old pre-keagle exercises and 5 vaginal births- self to stop this madness.  It was in vain. I peed my pants like a drunk hobo with no shame. Like a tantruming 3-year-old who simply “didn’t wanna.” Then I had an international walk of shame back to our hostel where, since we were at the end of our visit, no clean clothes awaited me. Instead, I changed into my ‘Jesus Is My Homeboy” baby tee and a pair of sexy black lace underwear a friend had thrown in my bag as a last minute joke on my straight arrow self. I climbed into my tiny twin bed in our dirty hostel just off of that dark, foreign road somewhere in Madrid, Spain with my freshly pierced eyebrow and had a moment of clarity where I felt like I was doing this college life just right.

Also, below are pictures of pictures because I'm old and we didn't have digital cameras way back when :)