Don't Blow It! (Patreon)

This month's solitary poll was a ton of fun!  I decided to go with a softer brush this time to do the line-work, and I think it helped me a bit with the forms, but I'd love to hear what you guys think!

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Anyway, Bayside Fixtures needed some help getting people on-board with installing female urinals in their establishments.  Despite several months on the market, sales have been dismal.  The project took a good bit of R&D funding too, so the company needs to make some return on its investment.  

Enter our girl's advertising agency.  It's not exactly the most well-known agency around, but a contract from one of the nation's biggest manufacturers of plumbing fixtures might be just the thing they need to secure some big-fish clients.  And it'd make a decent profit on top of some much needed exposure --- nevermind the comparatively *ahem* taboo subject-matter.

They applied, received the brief, and set to work making the "best damn advertising strategy the plumbing industry has ever seen."  And finally, after much research, spit-balling, and staying out way too late to get some last-minute mock-ups done, they had it.  (Or at least, that's what their focus groups seemed to believe.)

All that remained was to make the pitch.  Sell the strategy to Bayside, and they'll have a huge client to work with for the next year.  Fail to sell it, and all their work is for naught as some other agency wins the client.  It's showtime for our account executive!

One would think the executives of a company that sells toilets would be a little more laid-back.  For Bayside Fixtures, it seemed the exact opposite was true; perhaps it was the "embarrassing" products they sold that inevitably drove them to act as sterile as business-suits come.  The lobby was quiet, clad in cold white marble, and mauve walls.  If the flowers weren't plastic, they would have died in the miasma of HR-jargon unleashed by the secretary into a beige handset.  

Even the conference room in which she'd make her pitch was tomb-like in that it was somewhere inside the building.  No windows, just walls.  Her partner on this one --- the creative director --- had come down with some brutal food poisoning, so she'd be going alone on this one.

So she waited.  Alone in that silent room with only a few of her posters to keep her company.  Those and a nearly-empty 1-liter of spring water that she chugged before stowing in her purse.  The atmosphere of this place told her that disposable water-bottles might be seen as entirely unprofessional.  She knew she'd downed a lot of water.  She already needed to pee a bit, though she could manage.

At least, that was what she thought.  It was hard to keep track of time in here, considering it oddly did not have a wall clock.  Instead, the account executive continually peeked at her phone within her purse since she didn't dare pull it out for fear of being caught with it.  Gotta be professional, eh?  Though, these executives were taking their sweet-ass time getting there.  With nothing to do but meditate on the steady --- and insidiously rapid --- filling of her bladder, she started to panic a little.  

It got bad enough that she thought about popping out for a quick second to find the room to which this company was dedicated (though, internally, she hoped she wouldn't be subjected to her first experience on one of their female urinals right now).  Two things made that idea little more than a daydream.  First: the execs could show up at literally any time --- even during the two-to-three minutes she figured it'd take to relieve herself.  Second: the keypad on the doorknob told her that this room would undoubtedly lock behind her.  

It had to have been another half-hour of waiting, based on her internal water-clock.  Still no sign of the people she was supposed to be meeting with.  Very unprofessional, she thought.  Or, she would have thought if her mind wasn't absolutely consumed with the frantic need to urinate.  She'd been stupid. That water was a really stupid move.  This was one of those stories told as a response to the question "when is the worst time you've ever had to pee?"

Now.  For fuck's sake, it was now.  Like the other accounts of long sports games, or the SATs, now was the time that tears were welling up in her eyes, no-doubt the result of liquid trying to find anywhere else to go but her monstrously full bladder.  A cold sweat rolled down her temples as she repeatedly observed how bad of a situation she was in.  

Then, there was a click at the door.  Four older men and two older women stepped in and took their seats at the table.  Each stopped to shake hands with our waterlogged account executive.  She smiled, clenching every muscle in her body.

Standing up was an indescribable torture.  Her belt was too tight.  Her pitch had begun, and there were only two things on her mind.  The first, of course, was her intense desire to pee a firehose gush into the nearest acceptable "fixture" --- female urinal, or potted plant.  Second was what the ill creative director had said.  

"Don't blow it!"