Our family (parents, two siblings, and I) is on a long road trip. This is before iPads or mobile screens, so we’re keeping occupied the old-fashioned way: games and talking. I can read books in the car, but my siblings get car sick from doing that, so my dad is sharing interesting facts from a book. 

Until he gets to a fact that sounds like he meddled with it:

Dad: “If you stretch out an adult blue whale from end to end on a professional basketball court… the game would be cancelled.”

Me: *Looking up from my book.* “Wait… that’s the fact?”

Dad: “Well, it would be cancelled, so I’m correct.”

Fourteen-Year-Old Brother: “Not necessarily true if there wasn’t a game scheduled at the time you were ruining that whale.”

Mom: “Gross!”

Fourteen-Year-Old Brother: “So it would be technically correct only based on timing.”

Dad: “If you took into account how often a game is played on the court, and how long it would take to clear away that much whale, it’s very likely that at least one game would be cancelled.”

Fourteen-Year-Old Brother: “That depends on…”

Cue a long and drawn-out argument of “technically correct” points that end up going nowhere except still resulting in a poor landlocked whale. Eventually, the argument dies down, and my little brother says:

Seven-Year-Old Brother: “I have a fun fact to share!”

We tell him to go for it.

Seven-Year-Old Brother: “If you took all the elephants on Earth and stacked them on top of each other… they would all die.”

Mom: “Okay, can we play something, anything, else, please?!”

To start, I am female, and my entire family, both sides, women have bladders the size of a thimble, while I either have a normal one or am blessed and have one slightly larger, but either way, I do not have to run to tinkle every sixty to ninety minutes as they do.

None of them can get through a movie without running to the loo; on road trips, we must stop every hour; and in a restaurant, they would go before the food was served, and again before we left the diner. When we went to a theme park, they would take turns jumping out of line because they couldn’t wait that long.

Now I would also like to point out that everyone on both sides of the family drinks coffee like there is going to be a shortage. If coffee isn’t available, they are all drinking soda. As a kid, I wasn’t allowed to drink either of these, and since it was the eighties, having a water bottle with you wasn’t a thing yet, so I had a couple of juice boxes and would use public water fountains.

This used to cause problems when I was younger, as none of them believed I didn’t need to go as often as they did. This would sometimes cause fights, as they would say I was throwing a temper tantrum for arguing with them. Now, I would like to point out that I wasn’t holding it, I drink enough liquid and have only had two to three UTIs my entire life, and got those because I didn’t go pee after being intimate.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, and finally learning to stand up for myself, we were on a road trip to visit family ten hours away, and, like always, they stopped at every big state-run rest stop. During one of these stops, I would typically get out of the car and stretch, as I was always stuck in the middle seat in the back.

I got out of the car with everyone else, but I started walking the opposite way.

Aunt: “[My Name], come with me.”

And I responded, as I have a hundred times before:

Me: “I don’t need to pee.”

Aunt: “You always say that. You don’t need to hold it.”

I snap back in a thirteen-year-old-ish way:

Me: “Then why don’t you ever listen to me? I DON’T NEED TO GO. Have I ever needed to stop to pee? When I was little, did I ever pee myself? Have I ever been the one who has stopped everything to go? NO, THAT’S BECAUSE MY F****** BLADDER ISN’T THE SIZE OF A MARBLE!”

All the family members (four adults) stared at me, as I had never shouted back at them, let alone cussed in front of them. They stand there in shock for a second, look at each other, and proceed to walk to the rest stop, leaving me standing there.

I get back in the car to wait for them, trying to figure out how much trouble I’m about to get in, as not only did I cuss, but I used the ‘F’ word.

When they got back into the car, no one said anything. My grandmother was the one driving and turned up the radio, and we continued in silence, which was almost worse, as I really knew I was in trouble at this point.

Ninety or so minutes later, I see a sign indicating the state-run rest station is a few miles away, and my aunt loudly says:

Aunt: “Rest stop in ten miles, who else has to pee because their bladder is the size of a f****** marble?”

Everyone in the car lost it and laughed. It took me a second to catch on that I wasn’t in trouble and to laugh with them. 

It became a running joke with that side of the family that now, thirty years later, my cousins who weren’t even alive at the time say it.