Lauren’s Law: Miniature Golf Moments

I was 4 years old when I emptied my bladder on a miniature golf course.

Like most toddlers, I waited until the most inconvenient time to tell my dad that I had to go. Not unlike my usual timing of whispering to my mom that I had to go potty during the climax of most movies.

Anyhow, back to my embarrassing moment on the green — now yellow. I’d guesstimate that we were on the 16th hole and nearly wrapped up. As a parent, I can see the thought process of not wanting to step off the course to go to the bathroom and then get back in line.

I was undoubtedly losing the golf match to my two older siblings but thinking and bragging about how I was winning with the highest score. My dad wouldn’t have even noticed if not for my brother and sister teasing me for that error, plus poking fun at the puddle underneath me.

If only I’d seen “Billy Madison.” I could have retorted, “You ain’t cool unless you pee your pants!”

Fast-forward to many years later. Last September, we took my toddler daughters, Charlotte and Riley, to play miniature golf. Thankfully, it was the offseason in Ocean City, New Jersey, on a beautiful evening.

I was four months pregnant with a constant need to pee. Clearly still haunted by my 4-year-old episode, I made sure I went before heading to the boardwalk.

My youngest, Riley, soon lost her ball to a waterfall. Carrying her on my hip, we made the long and tearful trip back to the front counter for a new neon pink ball.

Upon my return, Charlotte shared that she had to pee. Of course, we were in the middle of the round and furthest point possible from a bathroom.

Hoping history wouldn’t repeat itself, Charlotte and I hustled to the front counter. The poor lady manning the glass counter — or fishbowl as I’d call it — probably couldn’t wait to have her only and most bothersome customers gone.

“Where is your bathroom?” I asked in a panic.

“We don’t have bathrooms,” the teenager replied.

She pointed to the nearest boardwalk bathrooms, roughly 200 yards away. It might as well have been miles away, but somehow, we made it. The crisis was averted, and history did not repeat itself that evening.

As my family heads to the shore again, you better believe everyone will be required to go potty before we go miniature golfing.

Lauren Burke Meyer is a Severna Park native who was inspired to write Lauren’s Law as a humorous play on the well-known Murphy’s Law adage: “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”