The Story of Drinking My Own Pee
Just a quick disclaimer, this is the story of how and why I drank my own urine in vain, it's pretty gross. If you are easily grossed out then just be ready if you're going to read this or don't read it at all. Also, like I said before it's a long story, it takes me like 10-20 minutes to tell verbally, even longer to type it out. So enjoy the big wall of text.
If you were around when I was giving my introduction, then you should already know that Improv is my big thing that I love doing. For those of you that don't know Improv is basically comedic acting without a script, you get up on stage having no idea what is going to happen next and just act, if you have ever seen Who's Line then it's pretty much that. It's actually very in depth and complicated in how to Improvise well and I could write an essay about that but this is about me drinking urine.
It begins with me back in high school, I was a part of the Improv Club for all 4 years and it was pretty much the only extra curricular I did. Every year there would be an Improv Summer camp that the most committed people went to. I only went 3 of the 4 years because when I was a Freshman I was too socially awkward and scared to do anything of the sort. The camp took place at a University and it lasted one week. At the camp we learn advanced ways of doing specific Improv. I won't go into detail as to what we learn specifically because there is too much, what's important is that at the end of every day there is a nightly event. A special event, that was always something amazing and really fun. For example sometimes the professionals, the teachers, would do a 2-3 hour long improvised musical. Just think a musical but everything from the story to the music itself is improvised. Another example is a Karaoke night, which is pretty self explanatory (that's where I got the Bohemian Rhapsody thing if you were wondering). Anyway every year on the last night there would be an event called the Variety Lounge. This is basically just a talent show. Although, the term talent was used very loosely, it was pretty much anything interesting or awesome you could do. Some people do stand up comedian stuff, others play and sing songs, there was even a couple of guys who did a light show once, you know with those special glowy gloves that light up at the end of the fingers. So of course, I had to think of a special talent of mine that I could perform for the Variety Lounge. What did think of you may ask? Well it's quite simple, I have a very high tolerance for gross things. More specifically, if something doesn't taste horrible and won't poison/harm me in any obvious way then I don't have a problem eating it or putting it in my mouth. So the first year I'm at camp, and I'm freaking out because I don't know what to do for the Variety Lounge and then I remembered my friend bought a pack of gum on the ride down to camp. I then realized what I could do and took a few of the extra pieces of gum he had. Later that night during the event, it's my turn to go up. So I step up on the stage and ask for 3 brave volunteers to come up with me. As they come up I take out the pieces of gum and explain that they are going to all get a piece of gum and chew on it for a few minutes, then proceed to spit it out and I will wad it all together and chew on that for the rest of the night. Everyone seemed pretty shocked when they heard my plan, of course by the time I was done explaining everything and answering most of the "Why are you doing this?" kind of questions the volunteers I called up had enough time to chew their gum. Now everyone was pretty much dead silent up until the part where the volunteers spit out the gum and I wadded them together into one big piece, once that happened the cries of "OH MY GOD HE'S DOING IT!" and "NO DON'T DO IT!" started filling the room. And well, I did it. I put that gum in my mouth and chewed on it for the rest of the night. That was just the beginning though.
Another year rolls around, and I'm already signed up for camp again. I was trying to think of something to top my act last year while still following the same taste horrible and doesn't kill me rule. I thought about it for months, I didn't figure it out until a week before camp. So fast forward to that years Variety Lounge and it's my time to go again. I call up 4 volunteers this time and quickly explain last years Variety Lounge story so everyone who wasn't there last year understands what's going on. I pull out a cup and a new toothbrush that I brought along with me from home and another cup that I got at camp filled with ketchup. I tell the 4 volunteers to please spit inside the empty cup that I brought. While they are doing that I explain to the audience that this year I'm going to brush my teeth with ketchup as toothpaste and their spit as the water to wet the toothbrush. Instantly the audience loses it and a lot of people are just freaking out because they didn't want to believe I was actually going to do it. What sold it though was one of the volunteers that I called up had been chewing on gum or something and his spit was like orange colored, so the second they saw that it was just pure insanity. Most of the camp counselors were freaking out too, debating whether or not they should just call my act and stop me from doing it, I think there were like 10 girls who had to run outside because they didn't want to throw up watching me do this. Then I did it. Just like last time, I just went for it and before I knew it I was done. The next day I got an award and a nice trophy thing for being the grossest person in camp history, I still have it somewhere in my room. But I still had one more year before I graduated and that meant one more Variety Lounge.
Now I honestly couldn't beat the previous year in terms of pure grossness. I will admit putting ketchup in my mouth doesn't taste very good and it's worse when I have to brush it in. It took me a great deal of mental preparation to successfully do it without losing it on stage. This last year though, it was pretty obvious what I had to do to top my previous years. I had to drink my own pee. It may not be as disgusting as my other acts but it's definitely up there in infamously gross things to do. The problem, like most people I hope, I had never tasted my own urine or any urine in general. I had no idea whether it was going to be a big red flag on my no gross tasting rule. So I had to make sure that if it was gross tasting, I could handle it. In other words for the coming months up until the week of camp I drank my own urine to get used to it. Had to start small and slowly work my way up until I could handle enough for the act. If you ever wondered, urine taste like ocean water, very salty, funky after taste left in your mouth. Although the worst part was the smell because that's actually pretty unpleasant, especially if it's right in your face. So then I get to camp, I've been training, so to speak, for my Variety Lounge act and I'm super excited to make everyone lose their minds one last time. At this point I'm pretty famous for my previous acts because apparently a lot of people must of used me as an advertisement to get their friends to go to camp. So a lot of people were asking me if I had something planned, and of course I did but I wanted to keep it secret until the night of the act. Unfortunately I found out that I was banned from doing something gross on the Variety Lounge, apparently the award they gave me was their nice way of saying it to me and I didn't pick up on it. So for the next few days I tried to convince them to let me do my act, but in the end to no avail. I had spent the past few months drinking my own pee for nothing, it was quite disappointing. Even though I couldn't do my original act, that didn't stop me from doing something though. After discussing it with some of my friends who I let in on my original plan, I figured something else out that would work. So it's the night of the Variety Lounge once again and I had submitted the description of my act and everything was ready. It's my turn to go up, everyone who remembers me from the previous years is just scared to see what I'm going to do. Again I explain my previous acts to make sure everyone is on the same page. Then right as I'm about to reveal my act, I pull out a kitten calendar (that's another story as to how I got that to begin with) and upon seeing it go crazy on how cute it is. Now I do love cats, I just don't have one because of responsibility, so whenever I see cute kitten images I usually have one of those "OHHH IT'S SO AHHH I LOVE IT!" moments. Of course being a male I usually keep it in my head because I'm not the biggest fan of social suicide whenever I see a cat. In this case I just let it all out. It took a good 10 seconds for the audience to realize I just tricked them all. I still managed to make them lose their minds, just out of laughter instead of terror. And well that's it, that's the story of how I drank my own pee in vain. I'll never forget it, and I often tell the story as an icebreaker for myself, provided there is enough time.
