I'm So Tired of Peeing Green

It's not my fault. The local markets have asparagus on sale for a buck a pound. A buck a pound! In New York you can't buy wet dirt for that. I'm cheap, I'm pretentious, and I like to eat my veggies, which means I just can't stop myself.

Besides, it's not like there's any competition. Carrots? Too crunchy raw, remind me of baby food cooked. Spinach? Yeah, I love washing a bathtub full of leaves and ending up with a tablespoon of food. Broccoli? Like I want something that both tastes lousy and leaves me puttering like a lawnmower. I can barely force potatoes down unless I've got an equal-sized pile of bacon bits.

ODing on asparagus is a ritual I do this time every year. I haul home ten or twelve bags full of spears and spend entire days cooking them. I steam some, I boil some, I roast some. I make salad and pastas and compotes and terrines, and eat the things until I'm blue in the face. Then a couple hours later, stuffed to the gills, I cluelessly saunter into the bathroom. And all hell breaks loose.

If I'm lucky, I won't be in a public restroom. Because there's nothing worse than having a witness who hears me scream, "Holy shit! What the hell is that?" while I'm looking downstairs.

I'll stand there staring open-mouthed, wondering exactly what is up. For a split second I think there's a tiny Linda Blair being possessed in my pants. It occurs to me this is something out of the ordinary, so I turn frantic, wondering who I should call. I make a mental list of the symptoms just to save the 911 operator some time. It doesn't burn, it's not painful, it's not plugged up. It's just that, for some odd reason, Gatorade is shooting out of my dick.

Should I call a regular GP, I wonder, or would I need a sports doctor for that?

Before I can even reach for my cellphone, though, the pieces fall into place. I remember that vegetable I've been eating eighteen hours a day. I sigh with relief, but unfortunately, lacking short-term memory, I won't remember this the next time I go. Or the next. Or the time after that. It'll happen a hundred times and still catch me offguard. Every time I drop my pants it's like Groundhog's Day, where I'm startled anew by the neon fountain spritzing out of me, a scenic backdrop fit for a tiny Celine Dion show.

As my heart palpitations slow to a flutter, I try to convince myself it's worth it. Asparagus must be really good for me, I think. It puts so much leafy-green goodness in my body, there's a gallon left that it's got to shoot out. Still, every year I swear it'll be my last, even if they paid me to haul the asparagus away. Because I hate the accusing eyes at the local laundromat, wondering what a guy has to do to get green spots on his underwear. I hate taking a piss in blue toilet water and changing it to teal.

But last night was the last straw. I was standing at a urinal in the bathroom of a fancy restaurant when a handsome, well-dressed man sidled up next to me. He smiled at me, I smiled at him, and sparks flew. Then he sniffed the air and asked "What's that smell?"

I had to offer him a choice.