Tinkle Tiles

This is one of those stories mothers never hear, nor should they hear. It is impossible to give an adequate explanation to the women-folk why boys do such things. It’s just something you have to shake your head at knowing there is no way to comprehend what goes on in the mind of a boy. That said, you decide whether or not to proceed.

At Buffalo Elementary School, the entire class would take bathroom breaks together. We’d line up at the door, march down the hall in double file lines, then line up to do our business. One of our favorite games to play involved urinals and floor tiles. The game was to see how many tiles away from the urinal you could stand without peeing on the floor. Each tile crossed was a point. If you drank lots of milk during the milk break, and you had enough bladder pressure built up, on that rare occasion you could actually back up so far your spine would touch the wall before you’d have to carefully run back toward the urinal lest you tinkle on the floor. That would be a foul bringing your tile points down to zero and it would also make the janitor very upset.

Our third grade class played this game every chance we got. Some were more gifted than others. I was counted with the very skilled. Unknown to us, word must have gotten out about this game called Tinkle Tiles. I’m not sure if we had a stool pigeon (pun intended) or if there was so much pee on the floor it was obvious what was happening. However they found out, I was there the day it came to a swift and sudden end.

As I backed away from urinal number three, I could tell I was going to be a winner that day. Swiftly moving backward I enjoyed the accolades of my classmates. However, the cheers must have been heard by a suspicious Mrs. Hjemeland. Tossing aside the well-known rules (no girls allowed in the boys bathroom) she threw open the door. The shock caused us Olympians to immediately stop all backward movement and pinch off the stream causing a record amount of tinkle to hit the floor. Then we received a stern lecture on standing next to the urinal so we would not pee on the floor.

There was a long discussion on the playground later that day regarding the fact that had Mrs. Hjemeland obeyed the rules, there would be no pee on the floor. We made a pact that day to never cheer each other on anymore. From then on we posted a guard by the door and were never busted playing Tinkle Tiles again.