There are two kinds of bathrooms at the beach. Obviously, the water itself (for it’s no secret that the ocean is one massive toilette) and the “real” bathroom. In other words, a structure with multiple stalls and “commodes” placed inside of them. Commodes with pipes that will invariably lead back into the very ocean in which you’re swimming. All pipes lead to the ocean. Everyone knows that. Even if they “don’t think about it.” For, regardless of whether you are thinking about something (or rather, willfully trying not to think about something), it doesn’t mean you don’t know it. Don’t feel it in your bones.

Zoey felt it in her bones for sure, which is why she found it difficult to choose between “the lesser evil” of pissing in the ocean or the nearby toilet provided. Because she still liked to classify herself as someone “civilized,” Zoey opted for walking—or, to present a more accurate connotation, hoofing it—to the “legitimate” bathroom. And, for the first day that she went to the beach, the beach that would become her go-to while on this trip, it was fine to do that. Because no one was using it; there wasn’t a soul to compete with. It, thus, seemed fairly obvious that everyone was, as usual, using the ocean as their toilet instead. Which worked out great for Zoey, for she couldn’t have imagined how long she might’ve had to wait if there had been an actual demand for this bathroom, which only contained three stalls—none of them with toilet paper, of course.

That was something else she was quickly learning about most bathrooms in this “beachside paradise”: it was strictly BYOTP. And yes, as with most things, the consequences of that lack weren’t as dire if you were a man. Indeed, there were many occasions on this trip that reminded Zoey of how much easier it would be—how much freer—if she were a man. Packing a penis, as it were, that could just be whipped out at a moment’s notice if need be (a.k.a. whenever she had to piss). And how it did “need be” on the second day she went to the same beach expecting again to easily use the women’s bathroom located three flights up from the sand. Only to find that, this time, it looked as though every female within a three-mile radius of the spiaggia had suddenly discovered the existence of this humble edifice. Made all the more humble by the extensive use it was getting.

And since it was afternoon by the time Zoey absolutely had to use it, the conditions of the structure were, let’s say, much more slapdash than they would have been at the outset of the morning. But then, who but the hyper-planning freakshows arrive at the beach in the early part of the morning? As a matter of fact, Zoey hadn’t arrived until about eleven, pushing her bladder-holding capabilities to the max until two, at which point the bathroom was a disaster. A cesspool. Liquids of an indiscriminate nature practically flooding the floor, the potent intermingled smell of piss and shit, the errant dirty diaper that didn’t quite make it into the trash. All of which made Zoey turn on her heel after about five minutes of waiting in a line that wasn’t budging.

To her surprise, no one else seemed to be growing impatient enough to abandon their post. As though, out of nowhere, they all had principles (or standards) about “letting it all out” in the ocean. Well, not Zoey. Not anymore. The way her bladder was bulging, there was no more time left for “principles.” No more time for trying to show “respect for Mother Nature.” No more time for much of anything really. She had to “release”—and quick.

Pushing sunburnt women aside, some of them standing alone, some of them standing beleaguered as they held crying children, Zoey practically incited a catfight with her erratic movements nearly knocking people and their things over to get back to the beach. Back to the ocean where she could just dive in and piss without having to feign the politesse of needing the “convenience” of modern plumbing. What was convenient or even natural about it in the end? The more she reflected, the less she could understand why she had ever bothered (on this trip, let alone on any other ocean-oriented vacation she had taken) with the “propriety” of using so-called real bathrooms whenever she went to a beach. What was she trying to prove? That she was somehow better, more “decorous” than all the other uncouth motherfuckers surrounding her? And besides that, it’s not like anyone was going to acknowledge her for her “good work.” It would be a denial of who she was—who every human was—at her core to say that acknowledgement, recognition of some kind for her good deed didn’t matter to her. Because it did.

Somewhere deep down, she had to recognize that she wasn’t making such a concerted effort to piss in the bathroom for reasons of “altruism.” Reasons of wanting to be “decent” to Mother Nature. Because if she really did, she probably wouldn’t travel, full-stop. Tourism, after all, made up a significant percentage of the world’s carbon emissions. So no, at the heart of the matter—being an asshole to the Earth—she couldn’t genuinely say she was “above” everyone else. Maybe, in a certain regard, she was even worse. For pretending that she was somehow more “conscientious.”

Having essentially sprinted down the three flights of stairs so that she could jump into the ocean in time to avoid being seen urinating in public, she let out a sigh of relief as the stream flowed forth and into this much larger body of water. Looking around again to double-check that no perv with goggles was swimming near her, she let out a sigh of relief as the final trickle concluded. Zoey consoled herself with the notion that the urea in her piss was technically considered a “nutrient” for marine life. The algae would especially appreciate her contribution to Poseidon’s toilet, taking it in and absorbing it as a food source. When she really considered it, she felt she had done a great thing. Not just for nature, but in communing with it. Making her wish she hadn’t wasted so much time trying to avoid pissing in the ocean until now.

As she swam back to the shore, however, the intermittent shifts in the temperature of the ocean, some “pockets” feeling normal and others hotter, she shuddered at the idea of everyone else around her—particularly the child set—treating this water as the urine receptacle it fundamentally was.