money machine - Living Up to My College Nickname
So, I have three short stories to tell.
The first begins in my days as a college student at the University of Missouri. I had three fantastic roommates. We all got along as best as four college roommates can during Covid times, getting drunk together, having dance parties, playing games, and watching meme videos in the living room of our duplex house, which we called The Blue Palace.
One day, one of us found this really stupid and goofy meme, and we all tagged ourselves as members of this “squad”.
I was, by process of elimination, selected as the “Piss Baby” of the group. I rejected it at first - who wants to be called a piss baby? Well, it eventually just stuck and I embraced my silly name, and eventually used it as a gamertag in my online games. Some people found it funny, but my gamer friends not so much. I’ve since changed it as the residents of the Blue Palace have grown apart, but I still hear the name when reminiscing from time to time.
Earlier I wrote about my time in London, and I talked about my time with Michael from the UK. We went out clubbing the night we met and had an awesome time! What I didn’t mention was what happened right before we left.
I had been drinking quite a bit with some English people - both water and alcohol - before I met up with Michael. We started walking and every step I took came closer to an “emergency” situation. I saw my opportunity - a less visible corner of a building with a pillar about 6 feet (about 2 meters) from each wall. As I started to… ahem… leak… I shoved my umbrella into Michael’s hand, dipped into the space and just opened my pants.
As the wave of relief washed over me, I look to my left and notice that this wall is in fact not a wall, but instead a full size window. The inside was dark aside from the faint glow of computers at a cubicle station roughly 30 feet (9 meters) away. I see one face the darkness that slowly leans back and shifts his gaze from the screen over to me, like a busy librarian hearing someone talk a little too loud. A disapproving scowl appears across the man’s face, so I respond with a smile, flash a peace sign with my free hand, and quickly finish up.
Now with mildly wet pants and an equally mild sense of embarrassment, Michael and I walked back to the hostel so I could quickly change. He was super cool about it though - a sign of a good friend.
In Rome, I stayed at the Yellow Square Hostel, which had fantastic amenities. An attractive atmosphere, great branding, a laundry room, organized hostel events, a bar busy with discounts for Yellow Square guests, and a co-working space. It was a perfect place for a solo traveler like myself and the many others I met.
The event I attended on the first night was a Quiz Night. I got paired up with some completely random people - Jamie and Jabji from the UK, Mathias from Brazil, and Ky from Australia. This random team of us guys, who named ourselves Quiz Team Aguilera, won the quiz night! We proceeded to celebrate by getting absolutely hammered and staying out until 4am.
At some point in the night, I went to the restroom and, drunkenly and very embarrassingly, dropped my phone into the toilet. Thankfully, my pee was mostly clear and my phone is waterproof, so after a very thorough rinse and a night of drying out and it was fine the next day.
I told the quiz team about my blunder and the story from London as well, and we had quite a laugh about it. What was not so funny was the nasty hangovers we all had the next morning.
For those of you who know me really well, you know that this is not the first time I’ve dropped my phone in the toilet. It’s the third time, actually. Ask me about it later if you want.
Sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself. I’ve told countless people about why I’m on this trip and about my layoff story, and it’s this kind of vulnerability and openness that can really open up some interesting conversations. It can also be very therapeutic to write about vulnerabilities, even if it’s a joke at my expense… which I’m also deciding to put out for the whole internet to see. Whatever, I don’t care. Let’s just hope I don’t have any more Piss Baby stories for the rest of the trip.
As for the origins of the term “piss baby”, I think this song either coined or popularized the term.
