The Expert On Breaking The Seal
(No, not that kind of seal.)
The Haven interrupts its regular publishing to report the death of Dr. Bessie Fosnight, who learned how to avoid the bother and embarrassment of Breaking The Seal.
BTS refers to the first time a person voids their bladder at a bar. That temporarily weakens the bladder such that, for the rest of the night, it’s owner will be frequently forced to pee.
That isn’t a mere nuisance. Repeated “calls of nature” disrupt important social interactions. Exchanges of gossip: a person hears the first part of a news flash — a female friend has become “like a run-on sentence”; but a sudden need to run to the restroom causes them to miss the capper — “because she’s got no period.” Courtship rituals are interrupted: men’s attempts to get women’s phone numbers; women’s attempts to blow them off by providing fakes. And the sharing of vital information: a person tells a recent hookup there’s something they should know — then must run to the restroom; but when they return, they’ve forgotten what they wanted to say (it was something to do with the rash, warts, or sores which blossomed overnight in their nether regions).
Breaking the seal can’t be avoided. Beer-drinking floods the body with fluids. But the alcohol blocks a hormone which causes bodily tissues to absorb excess water. That leaves no alternative but for the kidneys to eliminate the excess, and run at full throttle ‘til they do.
Dr. Fosnight, however, knew breaking the seal could be postponed. She was an osteopath on the Leelanau, a sparsely-populated peninsula in Michigan’s Up North, known for its vast cherry orchards and hundred scenic miles of Lake Michigan shore. She was familiar with BTS; she’d seen men do the telltale “restroom trots” many times in bars. But she’d never broken the seal at a bar herself. Nor had other women on the Leelanau. For some reason, they could put off breaking the seal until they got home, and could relieve themselves in the comfort and privacy of their own bathrooms.
Dr. Fosnight set out to learn why. She conducted field experiments at a bar. The participants were a cross-section of peninsula women: farmers, shop owners, dental hygienists, seamstresses, LPNs, secretaries, teachers, tradeswomen, hairdressers, housewives, and realtors. Dr. Fosnight recorded what they drank, how much, how fast, and if and when they broke the seal. Then she conducted day-after interviews to determine if the test subjects’ lifestyles could account for the results.
Naturally, she had to get them to drink. She did it by having them play a drinking game: Never Have I Ever. The game goes like this. Eight players are seated at a table. The first player says “Never have I ever…”, followed by something they’ve never done, such as “…flirted my way out of a speeding ticket.” Any other player who has done that must take a drink of beer; the rest stand fast. Then the next player says a “Never.”
Some people assume Never Have I Ever is just a way to get blitzed in a short amount of time. Not Leelanau women. To them, Never is a game of strategy, tactics, cunning, and skill.
For starters, they don’t use the hackneyed “Nevers” which are guaranteed to get players sloshed. Ones like “Never have I ever flashed someone”; “faked an orgasm”; “been a member of a radical organization”; or “been a Barry Manilow fanilow.”
To increase the degree of difficulty, they sometimes did “Nevers” in flights of four. Such as “Never have I ever…”
- “Run out of clean bras and panties”;
- “Turned a day-old set inside out and worn them again”;
- “Borrowed my roommate’s clean bra and panties without telling her”; and
- “Worn my roommate’s “day-olds” inside-out because her’s were fresher than mine.”
What most set Leelanau women apart, however, was that they were pros. They deployed “Nevers” like land mines. Hammered those who stepped on them with targeted follow-up “Nevers.” Watched their faces and body language for “tells.” And when those showed them to be vulnerable, slammed them with “Nevers” which left them wasted.
That said, Leelanau women never abused their Never powers. They didn’t use “Nevers” to make people admit to affairs, debaucheries, or something worse than a Class C misdemeanor or a Class H felony. Nor did they use “Nevers” to gather intel for personal gain. (Unlike a notorious amateur who used what she learned during a Never game to obtain a coveted parking spot, get named “Teacher of the Month”, and get elected Deacon at her church.)
Dr. Fosnight observed ten Never marathons. Sure enough, every player left the bar with her seal unbroken. After completing the next-day interviews, she learned why.
The women fell into two groups. The first made considerable efforts to strengthen their bladders. They kegeled. Juggled yoni eggs in their vaginas. Wore a Vibro-Bladder Belt around the house. Did a half-hour daily workout with Bladder Shake-Weights®, a BOSU Bladder Ball®, or a Suzanne Somers BladderMaster®. Oh, and they regularly drank cheap beer in large quantities, and had done so all their adult lives.
The women in the second group didn’t exercise their bladders. But they drank cheap beer — lots of it, frequently, all their adult lives.
There it was, the key to not breaking the seal: cheap beer. As repeated heat treatments temper steel, repeated exposures to cheap beer strengthen bladders. But only in large quantities. Because, as Nietzsche observed, “What does not burst my bladder, makes it stronger.” Leelanau women proved Nietzsche right. After decades of drinking Pabst, Blatz, Schlitz, Stroh’s, Falstaff, Old Style, and Hamm’s, their bladders were tough as Kevlar®.
