Why can't Johnny Pee?

For the second time in my life I have failed to help Johnny Weir to achieve Gold.

Watching Johnny skate last night in the winter Olympics brought back memories for me. These are not memories of former Olympic glories, of Brian Boitano or even coming in from the cold apple-cheeked waiting for a cup of steaming coco.

No, my Johnny Weir memory involves the basement of the X-Cel Center in St. Paul, Sample cups and an anti-doping badge. You see, I, in fullness of my capacity for self-destruction was assigned to watch Johnny pee.

My wife (She of the Stolen Bike) has a friend who was somehow in the judging circuit for figure skating. The friend asked She of the Stolen Bike if she wanted to come watch the event, (it was one of those championship stars on ice thing) She of the Stolen Bike being frugal and enjoying skating said sure.

The price of admission? Watching figure skaters pee.

You are probably aware that professional sports have a 'no performance enhancing drugs' policy. In order to enforce that policy the anti-doping consortium (to be here on referred to as the Pee Society) enlists VOLUNTEERS to sit in a little room, watching little people drink little bottles of water so that they can pee into a little cup and hand it to a little doctor who will test it for pernicious substances. It is this penultimate moment that She of the Stolen Bike signed up to watch. And I being the dutiful Husband agreed. However not enthusiastically.

It struck me as strange to be a guy who volunteers to watch someone pee. The strangeness is primarily because there is no way to pretend you didn't know what was going to happen. Its not like the skaters think you were just hanging out and then somebody in a trench coat walks up to you and goes "psst. hey come here" then puts an ether soaked rag on your face and drags you to the pee room.

Nope, the little skaters see you and think 'oh, Jesus, here's the guy who volunteered to watch me pee'. This is awkward.

Here, let me paint you a picture.

First, not all skaters have to pee in a cup. Skaters who finish first have to pee in a cup to pay the price of victory. Then some evil vindictive skating judge randomly draws another pee-er. In my case it was the person who came in second. Our boy, Johnny Weir.

Here is how it works. After your skater gets off the ice go up to him and say 'Mr ______ please come with me we need to take you to anti-doping.' He will then look at you like 'oh, poop on a stick' and will walk with you to...the pee room(actually a room set up for just this purpose).

Now, I am 6'3" about 235 pounds. This means as I was walking Johnny back to the pee-room I could have tucked him into my back pocket.

In another age, he would have been stoned to death after being mistaken for an imp.

We get to the room and I sat down in the little molded plastic chair chair sitting next to this wildly famous (to other people, I had never heard of him)skater watching him suck back ice mountain water and talk to the guy who won (I still don't know who he is) about all sorts of things you don't expect to hear figure skaters talking about. You know about cars, parties and such the like. Those little segments during the olympics make it seem like all they do is skate and review tape.

Over the course of the next few minutes female skaters kept walking by and giving the 'oh, you have to pee in a cup' face and saying 'bummer' and other such kindnesses, giving hugs to our boys and saying encouraging 'come on and pee' things.

With each passing tiny, tiny woman Johnny would roll his eyes and dutifully go back to his water making small talk with me...who now felt like the guy in My Giant talking to Billy Crystal.

Sasha Cohen came through, Michelle Kwan and a bunch of others, the pattern held true.
"Oh, Johnny, your number got pulled"
"Yep" (big ass smile, scallywag roll of eyes to show how above the process he is)
"oh, that sucks"
"Yep, well, good luck" (tiny little women kiss the tiny little man on the cheek)
"Yeah, Ok, I hope I can land my ________"
"oh, yeah"
"well, gotta go" (little woman version of the scallywag eye roll)
"bye" (looks to me, real eye roll to suggest that he would say 'bitch' but he is exercising discretion)

5 minutes turned to 10, 10 to 15 and 15 to 45 and there was Johnny still drinking water,and actively not peeing.

The winner comes back from the bathroom where he was escorted by a much more experienced pee-watcher and goes on about his day while I sit with Johnny 'I ain't gonna pee for nobody' Weir.


All this time I am sitting there thinking "oh, my god, I volunteered to watch this tiny person pee...does this make me a pervert?"

Finally the other volunteer pee watcher came to the rescue. He had a ton of pee watchings under his belt and volunteered to watch Johnny pee releasing me to watch the rest of the competition skate...not pee.

I looked over to Johnny as if to ask 'is that OK?' but realized that any response to the contrary would have essentially be saying 'no, thanks, I really want to watch Johnny pee'. So I took volunteer pee-guy up on his offer and went to watch Michelle Kwan skate.

Michelle won as it turned out, and then She of the Stolen Bike got to watch her make the only gold she would ever get.

Anyway. Last night was the second time I abdicated my responsibility for watching Johnny make gold. This one was much more heart-breaking. But he and I will always have the pee-room in St. Paul Minnesota.