I Really Really Need a Wee!
By Author:
- In many novels by Derek Robinson there are references to fighter pilots getting caught short, whether due to the stress of combat or other reasons. One joke from Piece of Cake goes "If you see a pilot walking lopsided, its because one leg has shrunk in the wash." In the RFC novels, many pilots take to dosing their morning porridge with whisky or schnapps, in order to counteract the laxative properties of the castor oil that gets blown in their faces from their engines.
- Judy Blume:
- Peter in Superfudge briefly has one of these (due to six cups of punch at a school party) when his preschool-aged brother Fudge is taking his time on the only available toilet (due to two glasses of chocolate milk). Peter's tempted to lift the little boy off the can, but has been told to encourage the imperfectly toilet-trained Fudge to use it, so doesn't dare; he gets so desperate that he considers weeing on a large potted houseplant. Luckily, Fudge finishes in time, and is duly impressed by how copiously his big brother can urinate.
- In Blubber, two girls caught TP-ing a neighbor's yard are punished by having to rake his huge backyard. Both badly need to pee before they're finished, and both opt to water the man's trees rather than humiliate themselves by begging permission to use his bathroom.
By Title/Series:
- Andy Griffiths' Just Series:
- "Busting", the first story of Just Stupid! has this as the plot. Andy is running around the shopping mall trying to find somewhere to pee, and being stopped by idiots, authority figures, cleaning signs and a deadly escalator. He finally manages to find somewhere to pee - a huge fire overtaking the shopping mall. Only it turns out he was dreaming, and has now just wet the bed.
- In "In the Shower with Andy" from Just Annoying, Andy has sealed himself in the shower but doesn't know how to get out. He tries drinking all the water, but then he has to pee. He refuses to drink his pee, but he can't hold it in either, so he pees in the water and gives up trying to drink it.
- In the Arthur book Arthur Lost In The Museum, Arthur has to go to the bathroom while on a class trip to the museum, and has a hard time finding the bathroom, but finds the bathroom near the end of the book.
- The Bloody Road To Death by Sven Hassel. Porta thinks it's his lucky day when he finds a British parachute container full of Darjeeling tea, which he sells to the German General Staff. Unfortunately the nefarious British have put a strong laxative in the tea. As Porta is placed under arrest for suspected sabotage, he witnesses various high-ranking officers fighting for the few remaining toilets, searching for a booth that contains a lower-ranking officer that they can throw off his seat.
- Cats vs. Robots: In "This Is War", when Stu and Scout are exploring the laboratory, Stu suddenly feels a desperate need to pee. All he knows about that from Obi is "go in the box". While he does find one, it turns out he actually peed in Elmer, Min's robot for the "Battle Of The Bots" tournament. While Min is able to get Elmer working perfectly, the stench of cat pee still remains.
- Cinnamon Bun: Chapter 109: "Civility": Where Broc needs to pee, but is locked into a fight first.
- Clarice Bean: In "Don't Look Now", the eponymous girl has to run to the toilet to pee after drinking four cups of tea.
- The premise of Clayton Parker Really, Really, Really Needs to Pee is that a boy named Clayton is desperately searching for a bathroom at a zoo.
- Hornblower uses this excuse in The Commodore to get out of a reception line (even doing a Potty Dance) so he can go stop his translator and secretary Braun from assassinating the Czar.
- Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: Clara has to desperately pee while ice skating with Iris. She is finally able to in an abandoned windmill, and this is accompanied by a descriptive sentence:Clara lifts her skirt to pee. The piss steams over an ancient pile of bird shit.
- Dave Barry Slept Here begins the chapter on the Revolutionary War with an excerpt from the camp song "Midnight Attack of Diarrhea":Out of the bed and onto the floor;
Fifty-yard dash to the bathroom door! - Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Happens several times.
- When Fregley has the urge to go in the first book, he says, "Juice! Juice!" (the word for "I need to use the bathroom" in his Cloudcuckoolanguage) while squirming around. The teacher (P.E in the offical book) takes this literally.
- In the first book, Rowley has to use Grandma's bathroom during Halloween.
- Discussed in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, where Greg dreads the bathroom situation at Spag Union and says he highly doubts he can hold it in all summer.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down, Rowley has to pee while stuck in the same costume as Greg, meaning that it's an emergency by the time he gets to go.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, both Greg and the pig need to pee while on a road trip. Greg uses a gas station bathroom despite feeling awkward going with the pig next to him, and the pig, who is a Brainy Pig, ends up figuring out how to use Manny's potty.
- In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, Greg and Rowley discuss what will happen if Rowley has one of these while in a box. Greg gives him a bottle, but then Rowley asks what happens if he has to go #2. Then Greg says he shouldn't think about that until it's really time to.
- Discussed in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School. After Albert Sandy claims that Silas Scratch might move through the pipes, the kids get too scared to use the bathrooms. Some of them decide to hold it in until they get home, but Greg writes that it doesn't sound so smart because they're only on day 2 of a week-long trip.
- Discussed when Greg says that the toilets next to his class are positioned so that his classmates can hear him using them, so he doesn't use them unless it's an "absolute emergency".
- Towards the end of the Dinosaur Vs book "Dinosaur vs. the Potty", Dinosaur needs to pee so badly that he has to run to get to the toilet.
- The Dirty Bertie story entitled "Loo" involves the main character "Bertie" leaving it too late to go to the toilet whilst his class are stopped at a motorway service station on the way back from a school trip, and subsequently becoming desperate to go on the coach. Left with no other option he subsequently ends up urinating in a bottle after the suggestion to do so is made by his teacher Miss Boot. This subsequently backfires after a fellow pupil and enemy, Know-All-Nick steals the bottle out of his backpack, mistaking it for lemonade.
- In Distress, anthrocosmologists kidnap Worth and Kuwale and tie them up in the hold of a boat. As the hours pass, Worth's need for a bathroom becomes increasingly urgent. He wonders if he'll eventually have to go where he's sitting, or if he'll die like Tycho Brahe. Luckily, his captors let him pee over the side before that happens.
- The Eagle Tree: On March and his mother's first night in their new house, March has to go to the bathroom really badly, but the brass toilet handle throws him off because the toilets at home and at school have white and silver handles. His mom creates a silver line with tinfoil, allowing March to pee before he has a Potty Failure.
- Father Christmas Needs A Wee! tells the story of Santa needing to use the bathroom on Christmas Eve after drinking 56 drinks (one drink on the first page, two on the second, etc).
- In Harmony (2016), Tilly insists on stopping to pee only fifteen minutes away from camp, to the annoyance of Iris, who asks her why she didn't go at the gift shop they just visited.
- The children's book Have You Seen My Potty? has a girl named Susie-Sue be desperate for the bathroom, but a bunch of animals have stolen her potty chair. The animals are also shown needing to go quite badly (the sheep even says, “I have to pee” at one point).
- In one Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower uses this excuse to get out of a ceremonial line so he can stop an assassination attempt. The narration delicately evades saying so explicitly, instead describing it as "the only excuse he could think of" and how he inadvertently adds to the veracity of the excuse by dancing from one foot to the other in his anxiety, but the implication is unmistakable.
- Discussed in the Horrible Science book "Shocking Electricity'', in which the narrator says, "By now you're probably bursting to ask a question— I don't know for sure though; maybe you're bursting for a pee".
- "I Like Monkeys": The protagonist is left badly needing to pee halfway through the story, but cannot due to the dead monkey he stuffed down the toilet earlier and being too embarrassed to phone a plumber.
- The novel Isle Of View by Piers Anthony has a rare inversion of this trope. A character thinks another character is trying to find a suitable place to pee because she said she felt like she was "ready to burst." She actually said it because she has to wait until important business is resolved before she can tell everybody all about her adventures.
- The Xanth novels feature another aversion/inversion in the form of the Centaurs, who are not the least bit embarrassed by such bodily functions (such being, after all, only natural). They will thus not hesitate to make their business out in the open in front of everyone, which sometimes mortifies those around them.
- The Robert Munsch book I Have to Go is all about a boy named Andrew who has these at the most inopportune of times. Hilarity Ensues.
- The British children's book I Need A Wee! centers around an adorable teddy bear who needs to use the bathroom at a carnival. His friends warn he will wind up having to wait in line if he wastes his time, but gets distracted by too many fun things there. By the time he's done, his friends' prediction comes true, and he is on the verge of wetting himself. Luckily, he uses the bathroom in a trophy he wins at a dance contest.
- Played for drama in Stephen King's IT; Bev has to go but can't because she's trapped in the Losers' clubhouse with Henry Bowers on the loose.
- In Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, the title character goes through this during the climax when she tries to open several bathroom doors at school, only to find them locked. Thus, she rushes to the nurse's office and calls 911 on the phone. When she finally runs out the school exit, a green fire truck, white police car and red ambulance drive up to the parking lot on purpose. Then the janitornote stops her when this happens, but Junie B. convinces him that she's having an emergency, so he unlocks a girls' bathroom door for her.
- Juniper Sawfeather: A few hours into June's tree-sit in Whisper of the Woods, she realizes she has to pee. She can't think of how she's going to do it without falling 150 feet from her branch, but she's afraid she'll get hypothermia if she wets herself. Eventually she figures out how to pee over the edge of the branch without losing her balance.
- Princess has two of these in the Little Princess book "I Want My Potty". The first time, she has to run to her potty, and the second time, she doesn't quite make it.
- Miss Bindergarten Has A Wild Day In Kindergarten: "Christopher says he has to go—he really cannot wait". It ends up in a Potty Failure, and he has to wear extra pants for the rest of the day.
- Moon Base Alpha: At the start of the first book, Dashiell "Dash" Gibson is woken up at 2:30 in the morning by a need to use the bathroom, which he blames on the chicken parmigiana food cube he had for dinner the day before. While in the bathroom, he overhears Dr. Holtz talking to someone about a discovery he made that he wants to show to the world. This has Dash convinced that Dr. Holtz' death was murder.
- In one of the interlude scenes of the original novel, The Neverending Story, this happens during the first part. Bastian is so engrossed in reading the book that he tries to hold it as long as he can, but eventually, he has to make a run for the boy's room downstairs. While there, being the reading enthusiast he is, he starts to wonder why no-one ever has to "go" in any of the books he's read.
- Nina Tanleven: In The Ghost in the Third Row, while Nine’s waiting for her father to come pick her up, she realizes she has to go, bad. She winds up running back into the theater and upstairs to use the restroom in the mezzanine, leading to her second sighting of the Woman in White when she’s on her way back out afterward.
- The picture book Oh No, Gotta Go is about a young girl who drank a lot of juice and is out for a car ride with her parents when she really has to go. She asks where the bathroom is (or Where is un baño? because she's Hispanic-American) but it's Sunday and most of the stores are closed. The family finally gets directions to a restaurant and reach there only to find there's a massive line, but those in line allow the girl to cut because they can tell it truly is an emergency. Then after they eat and drink at the restaurant, resulting in a Here We Go Again! ending because the girl has to go again from drinking a whole bunch of lemonade at the restaurant.
- In Paper Towns, Ben ends up peeing into a beer bottle because the gang can't afford to stop their car for bathroom breaks while trying to reach Agloe in time.
- In Pip and Posy: The Little Puddle, Pip has one while playing with Posy. It ends in a Potty Failure due to him forgetting that he has to pee (he's only about four).
- In Potty Animals, Wilma has a habit of procrastinating bathroom trips, so she often either wets her pants or has to run to the bathroom.
- In Raj's Rule for the Bathroom at School, a boy named Raj is scared to use the bathroom at school, but then eventually gets so desperate that he must break his own rule.
- Ratburger: When Zoe is escaping her apartment from being grounded, she really has to pee.
- A Sailor of Austria by John Biggins. The crew of a WW1 submarine get food poisoning while hiding on the sea bottom, leading to an attack of particularly foul flatulence that forces them to surface in full daylight to vent the air. By coincidence they do so just as an enemy warship is passing in front of their vessel. After sinking it they return as heroes to be greeted by an army brass band, but unfortunately are still feeling the effects, so have to rush into the nearest bushes to drop their pants, outraging the local commander who assumes he's being deliberately insulted. He puts in a complaint that prevents the submarine commander from receiving Austria's highest military honor (he gets it later on in the book though).
- In the etiquette book A Smart Girl's Guide to Manners, it says that if you're at the table but "really, really need to use the bathroom", all you have to do is say, "May I be excused for a moment, please?".
- Snot Stew: Toby repeatedly mocks Butch by entering his enclosure, slipping safely through the fence, and reciting a rhyme describing one: "Fatty, fatty, two-by-four!/Couldn't get through the bathroom door!/So he did it on the floor!"
- The conflict of There's a Big, Green Frog in the Toilet is that the main character is busting to pee, but can't because of the frog that's in the toilet.
- Amy experiences one of these in This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It when she can't bring herself to use the disgusting toilet on the bus ride to Undisclosed. She phrases it in her internal monologue as a struggle of civilization versus barbarism.
- In the second Trueman Bradley novel, Trueman is following a murder victim's footsteps down the street when he sees that he paused in a copse of trees. At first he thinks the man was doing something illegal, until he finds traces of urine on a post and realizes that he just couldn't hold it until he got to the train station.
- Whateley Universe: The ending of The Bad Seeds
, involves Cheese starting one by using Nanomachines to "improve kidney output", and using "a super-strong construction supplement" to keep the bathroom door from being broken down. - When You Reach Me: Alice Evans. She waits too long to ask to go to the point she does the Potty Dance. It is implied that she has encountered Potty Failure as she is the only sixth grader with a change of clothes at school. Classmates love to keep her talking with them when she has to go just to watch her suffer.
- Wiggles' First Day at School: Wiggles has one after recess, but doesn't want to miss the next activity.Everyone came inside and sat down, but Wiggles kept squirming! The teacher said, "Wiggles, do you need to go to the restroom?" And he said, "No, I don't want to!"
And the children said, "No, no, Wiggles! When you're doing the Potty Dance, it's time to go!" - A children's book called Willie Wants to Wee Wee is about a boy named Willie who urgently needs to pee but forgets where he's about to do it. He gets to the bathroom but has to rush back in not too long after finishing, needing to do number 2 instead.
- Discussed in Words of Radiance when Shallan asks Adolin what happens if this occurs while he's in his Powered Armor. Adolin, rather taken aback by this question (he's used to dealing with Brainless Beauties), finally admits that he shat in his armor more than once.
