FHE Bowling & Self-Effacing Humor

Tonight for family night we went over to the Texas A&M's student center to go bowling. My score - I finished last - was a measly 63 - my two year old scored 64. Anyhow, my post isn't really about that, but what happened at the end of the game. Andrew needed to use the restroom and since Mike had already made one trip there with him that night - I couldn't really get him to take Andrew so I had to take him. When asking about where the restrooms were located the girl informed me that the first three stalls in the women's restroom were "female urinals".

Female urinals? I was intrigued - no, excited to reach the restroom and see exactly what this meant. I acted like, "Gee, that's strange but I'll never use one of those..." But inside I knew I was up for the experience. (It's kind of been a secret jealousy of mine - I have four brothers and now two sons.) Anyhow, when we got there I got Andrew situated in his stall and headed back to the urinals. Amazingly I found an image of the internet of the actual urinals in that very bathroom - some site catalogs all of the female urinals around the country - most seemed to be at universities.

Well, there weren't any instructions and I was pretty sure I could figure it out on my own. At first, everything seemed to be going pretty well - it was kind of fun - but then suddenly things spiraled out of control(literally) and I was left with a mess.

The thing about peeing on yourself as an adult is that you still have to pull up your pants and move on. It's kind of weird. You just stand there for a second not knowing what to do. No diaper bag change of clothes - no patient mother to sort out the mess. Just mother and her own mess. I actually feel really bad for the janitors. Oh well...

It appears there used to be instructions above the urinal on the wall - I looked and they weren't there tonight. I REALLY could have used those...
In the end, the question is - were people - women specifically - demanding to get these installed in the restroom? Did anyone think, "Man, I sure wish we had female urinals. That would be soo much better..."? And have any of you experienced the female urinal? If so, was your experience much like mine or were you more of a "natural"?

p.s. There's a part of me that wants to go back there and master that thing. Just to regain some self respect.

One step closer to our dream....

So tonight for FHE we went and got ourselves some chicken - not for eating. Actually, we got ourselves some chicks. They are as cute as anything and in not too long they will be put in our backyard to provide us with 3 or 4 fresh eggs a day! They'll be in our backyard a lot sooner than those eggs come though. When it's time to move we'll most likely give them away - Elijah already made us promise we wouldn't eat them. Andrew named his first - at the store he said, without even being asked - "I want mine called "mermaid"!" I didn't even know he knew what a mermaid was - which when I said that in the car on the way home he told me there was a mermaid in Backyardigans. Now, I know I'm his mom but that is one smart 2 year old. Mike was next with "Ursula" - to follow the theme of Andrew's name choice. Elijah named his "Crystal" and I finally settled on "Scarlett O'Hara". Mike's and Andrew's are the two black ones and they are Barred Rock Hens and mine and Elijah's are red and are Rhode Island Reds. We are so excited. We have been dreaming of keeping a few hens for a looong time and because of mentors like Marisa and the many books and websites I've looked at I finally felt it was time. Click on the links and you can see images of what they'll look like when they are older!