You might think you've had reason for alarm in your own past, but our next guest, Back to the Comedian, Yana Reganova. He was headed toward an emergency. Zepda. Okay, so a few years back, I booked a series regular on his TV shows called clip, and it was my first TV credit ever.
Let me ask you something. Were you and that metermaid are making love? Which one of you does the driving, and which one of you does the parking? I was like, this is it, this is my big break.
I'm gonna be the next Carrie Washington. I was balling. So, once the show wrapped up, I booked a fancy vacation to get away from it all. You know, get away from the fans.
Side note, what fans? I did not have any fans. Right before the vacation, I dislocated my knee. It's no big deal, it happens all the time, but I ended up on crutches.
So I go on this vacation, I just went to maintain a low profile at the time. And it was really great, and I was on my way back. So I get on the plane, they had two rows of seats, and then one aisle. And nobody looks happy.
Everybody looks like a grumpy version of Michael Bassbender. And as soon as my butt hits that seat, I know, I gotta go to the bathroom. I want those people with a small bladder. Just damn.
I'm sitting there, and I'm waiting for us to get to cruising altitude so that the pilot turns off to keep your seatbelts on it. And so, 20 minutes came and went, and then 25 minutes, and it's just not happening. We're just circling in the cloud layer, we're circling. And then finally, finally, 30 minutes in.
Aw, ladies and gentlemen, leave a reach for the altitude. And I say, okay, this is my moment. And I go and I unbuckle my seatbelt, but by the time I finally managed to fumble it open, bam, somebody's already ahead of me. And I stood up, and the flight attendant is like, ma'am, you're not allowed to stand up.
Ma'am, you have to sit down and wait. So I was like, all right, cool, I'm not trying to cause any trouble today. So I sat down. Because of this knee injury, I just kept getting beat to the bathroom.
I mean, I would be on the edge of my seat just waiting for that door to crack open. And as soon as I saw the light from the bathroom, I'd be, you know, funneling it, trying to get my crutches, and by the time I managed to do all that, bam, somebody else would be in the bathroom. And I just kept getting beat just over and over again. Stand up, unbuckle, grab a crutches, got beat.
Stand up, unbuckle, grab a crutches, got beat. Finally, finally, I looked around, I realized that bathroom was clear, and I stood up, and I grabbed my crutches, and I started making my way down the aisle so I can get a little bit of relief. And as soon as I'm halfway to my destination of the bathroom, uh, ladies and gentlemen, we started out a set. So go ahead and put your seats back and your train table up.
I was like, man, I gotta go to the bathroom. I'm not going to make it. And this time she didn't even have to tell me to sit down. She just gave me that look that you about to get in trouble.
And so I sat on my butt right back down in that seat. And I said, hey, listen, I just gotta go to the bathroom real quick. Can you let me go off and try to go off-light? And I kind of like took my crutches and I kind of, you know, showed them a little bit, kind of shimmied with them.
She was like, no, I was so stunned. And I said, you know what? It only takes 20 minutes to descend. You can make it.
So we start descending, and once again, we're just not descending. It's, you know, 15 minutes go pass, 20 minutes go pass. I mean, I have been holding it for a long time. So I just said, I'm gonna have to go to the bathroom.
So I stood up, and the flight attendant said, ma'am, I told you once you have to sit down. This flight attendant just looked mean. Like she was just mean mugging me from jump, you know what I mean? So I sat down, and I stood up one more time, and I said, I'm sorry, I really have to go.
And that's when people kind of started to notice that I wasn't paying attention to what she said. People started whispering, and I could see somebody pull out their phone and start recording me, and I could not have this. I could not get in trouble right now. Don't these people know who I am?
I am a series regular on the third highest rated show on TVS. You did a nice thing for me yesterday. Well, I'm actually a nice person. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing?
Listen, I was right at the top of my career. I was just about to break it big and become a household name. I really could not have a four time my face splashed all over the front page WorldStar hip hop. So I'm sitting there and I'm like about to explode.
And I was just like, okay, just run yourself through the worst case scenario. Okay, worst case scenario is I stand up and know what that lady says. I take this crotch and I smack her butt ahead so that I can get to the bathroom. But probably before I make it that far, an air marshal will tackle me and have me on the ground and have both my knees messed up.
Okay, or how about this? What if I stand up and I just stand in the middle of the aisle and I say like, this is for freedom? And I pee right then and there, you know, stick to the man. But then if I do that, I'll definitely end up all over the internet and I'll never work again.
And then I thought about, there was one more option, which is I've had to pee in small places before. My dad used to take me fishing all the time and I would pee in the back of the van in an old hubcap. And I was thinking to myself, Deanna, there is one of two ways you can pee because you're going to pee. You can either be standing up while an air marshal handcuffs you or you can pull out your Contigo travel mug and you can pee directly into that cup with as much dignity as peeing in public will allow you.
So I said to my girlfriend, I said, can you hand me my travel mug? And she did and she started to ask me why she started to say, what's going on? And I just shook my head and I put my one finger over to my lips and I was like, no. And I took my sweater and I slipped it over my lap.
And I was wearing like kind of baggy, like loose jogger pants. And I stuck the cup as far up close to my body as I could. I really want to pull down my pants but I was like, okay, somebody's definitely going to notice that. And I peed as hard as I could so as much of it as possible went into the cup.
It felt so good. I felt like I had just shed 15 pounds. And as soon as I was done peeing and I felt that burning shame but also that sweet release, I took the sweater and I lifted my butt up and I shoved the sweater underneath me and I screwed the top on the travel mug and I hung my head in shame. I was in row like, well, A or something.
And I turned and went back right back in row 13C. There was this old lady who was like, tight tight curls in her head who was giving me major side eye. Like she was looking at me so far outside of her head, she looked like a fish. I did, you know, use the sweater to protect the seat.
And I used some hand sanitizer because it was a leather seat and some Kleenex to clean it before I left the plane. So once we got off the plane, I was really so embarrassed. I was just trying to be discreet. I didn't want anybody to notice me.
My pants were still wet because I didn't have any spare pants on my carry-on, who brings spare pants on my carry-on. So I took my sweater and I tied it around my waist. I was sure that I smelled like pee. In fact, I was absolutely positive that I was going to slip on my crutches on my own pee and like bite it in front of everybody.
And as I'm going through the airport, I was on one of those like moving walkways when all of a sudden it happened. This guy like turns around and he looks and he says, Hey, ain't you Charmaine? From Clipped? She's on TV, y'all.
No one had ever recognized me before. And all of a sudden, the crowds parted like you hear about in movies. Everybody turned and started rubber-necking my way. One guy just like took a selfie with me as he was walking alongside the escalator.
There was nowhere to hide. I was just being paraded through this line of people. People started snapping pictures. I was so shocked.
I almost forgot about pee for like half a second because I couldn't believe that all these people were taking pictures with me. That's my pants all wet and stuff. I finally got my moment. So got excited, did you think?
Yeah, just my wet myself. Big thanks. To Deanna Reason over, Deanna is an actress and comedian living in LA. That original score was created and performed by Renzel Goryo.
The story is produced by Adiza Egan.