Physicists and public urination

I swear, one of these days I’m going to get arrested for public urination.
Burton and I were in St. John’s, the capital city, and had spent about an hour driving around completely lost looking for our way. It was quickly getting dark and I had drank a lot of water that day.
“Let’s take this road.” I suggested. “It looks nicely paved and smooth.”
We started down the road and it wound up through some little village. There were kids playing games on the streets, some random guy in the middle of the street sweeping up dirt, several flip-flops and dead cats and a chevy pick-up towing a broken down SUV. The road slowly got narrower and then suddenly it ended abruptly in a rocky driveway that led into someone’s house.
We reversed back down the street until there was a place to turn around, ran over the same flip-flops and dead cats and kept going.
We finally found the grocery store at about 7:30 and shopped as quickly as possible, our stomachs growling. After stowing our groceries in the car, we fended off a crazy bearded man who claimed he was a physicist and wanted to talk to us about something special, and found somewhere to eat.
It was a ‘food court’ in the loosest sense of the word- there were 3 bars labeled ‘Chinese’, ‘Italian’ and ‘Antiguan’. The Antiguan food looked pretty greasy…. the Chinese food didn’t look Chinese, or like food for that matter; but the pizza looked wonderful. We sat down and gobbled it up and drank coke and watched a cricket match on the big television and I looked around furtively for a bathroom. We’d been on the road for a while and my bladder was full but there wasn’t a really appropriate place to stop.
Back on the car we wound through little streets and finally got out of the city and headed back towards the other end of the island to the university.
“You’re going to have to pull over so I can pee in the ditch.” I told Burton.
“Where’s a good place, ma’am?” He asked.
“Anywhere, as long as it’s not in front of a lit house.” I said, taking one last sip of my extra large coke.
He pulled off the road into a deserted lot where a house was halfway being built. I got out of the car and walked behind the house a bit and squatted down…….
You know, while I am generally an accomplished back-woods-woman when it comes to relieving myself in remote settings, and while I am a mature young lady who is in medical school studying to be a professional whom people trust, there are always the ironic happenings of life that get in the way.
I stood up from the ground to find myself staring at a security guard standing with his arms crossed across his chest and a stern look on his face.
Again, when one finds oneself in such a situation, my best advice is not to stop and negotiate, but to run. I bolted for the car as fast as I could and leapt inside.
“Drive! Drive quickly!” I told Burton.
He squealed out of the yard and onto the street.
“What’s wrong?”
“There was a security guard standing right there while I was peeing!” I wailed. “This is a great tragedy!”
Burton didn’t even try to control his laughing.
“Actually, it’s not a tragedy. I’m pretty sure that would be a comedy.”
We hadn’t driven more than 200 meters when we suddenly came upon a convenience station.
“If you could’ve just waited a second longer….” Burton suggested obtusely.
I suppose through the lens of time I might be convinced to view that episode as a comedy. For now I hope for both of our sakes that I never meet up with that security guard again. I don’t think I would be able to explain myself to him sufficiently. Antigua is a small island and this is the second time I have been witnessed doing something embarrassing in front of a security guard. My only hope is that I was sunburned enough that he wouldn’t be able to recognize me next time he saw me.
We drove past the police station at some time in the evening and I had to wonder what a night in an Antiguan jail would be like. I wonder if they would let me off easy cause I’m a tourist. Or because I was delusional from my sunstroke. I’m pretty sure I could pull of a good case of delirium or psychosis if my dignity was at stake. At any rate, I could always claim I was a physicist and had something special to say, and if worst came to worst, I could just run.