I am 10 years old, out with my younger sister and our mother’s boyfriend, shopping. We’re at Ames, and I decide that I’d like to try on some new outfits while mom’s bf wanders the rest of the store. I pick up some courdoroy pants and winter coats, and for some reason, a pair of gloves.

I manage to make it to the dressing room, taking my sister in with me. And that’s when it hits me: my bladder is full. But hey, I’m ten years old, I can hold it, right? Right.

So I’m checking myself out in the mirror in my courdoroy pants, and it becomes clear that I’m not going to make it through this little adventure. I look at my sister as if to say ‘oh shit’, and within seconds, pee is streaming down a pair of pants that I don’t own. And it doesn’t stop there. Before I know it, my pants are soaked, and I’m standing in a puddle of my own urine. In a dressing room. With no toiletpaper.

Immediately, I go into disaster relief mode. Do I change back into my original clothes and run out of the dressing room as fast as I can? No, of course not. Instead, I take off the pants I was trying on, fold them and put them in a corner, and attempt to mop up the mess I’ve made with the winter jacket I took in with me. After a few minutes of this, it’s clear the coat can’t take any more. I’m able to get the pants to clean up a little more, but in the end, I have to throw my own gloves into the mix to finish it off.

Needless to say, I didn’t purchase anything from Ames that day. I never even set foot in one again while they were still in business, probably for fear that they would have me on some Ames Wanted List for what I had done. On the upside, I no longer had to make a separate stop at the restroom before booking it out of the store.