Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for March 23, 2025

Many of us consider putting it off for an hour is some kind of a moral victory.

The winner is obvious, it’s just the process of elimination

Never try to wait out the bladder. It just doesn’t pay.

Every morning, without fail! Nowadays, I don’t fight it (mostly). The problem is all the water and drinks in the dreams before you wake up!

This is MY night! I fight it from 3 to 4am. every single night.

“Rusty Bedsprings” by I. P. Knightly

In the spring of 2012, I had 45 radiation treatments for prostate cancer which the VA outsourced to the Artesian Cancer Center here in Tulsa. A few years after that, I told my primary care provider about have to get up during the night to pee. He just told me, “Don’t drink water for a few hours before you go to bed.” That advice didn’t work. In July 2021, I had kidney failure and went to an ER at a non VA medical center at the advice of the VA Doc I had at the time. While I was in the Hospital, a urologist came to talk to me. He asked me “When and where did you have the treatments?” I told him. Then he said, “That’s the reason you have renal failure.” He had talked to other patients who had been to Artesian. It had been closed down a few years. I had to start wearing Depend Briefs on the 1st day I had a radiation treatment. The biopsy done to find the cancer and the markers put in the prostate caused a bleeding problem. And although that healed, it weakened the muscles back there. Also, if I think I might have to pee, I better go to the bathroom ASAP.

Step to the left, now step to the right

Put your knees together and squeeze ’em tight!

Keep your arms moving side to side!

Try to hold it in ‘till it’s time to ride!

Knock Knock

Let me in!

Knock Knock

Let me in!

I gotta go!

Uh!

Knock Knock

Let me in!

Knock KnockLet me in!

I gotta go!

Keep moving now! Don’t you stop!

Hold it in till it’s time to drop!

Let me in before I pop!

Too late, gotta grab the mop

Knock Knock

Let me in!

Knock knock

Let me in!

I gotta go!

Uh!

Knock knockLet me in!

Knock Knock

Let me in!

Ah! Wicked pissah.

The price I pay for having to take bp meds at 11:00 pm. AH the days of sleeping all night in my youth.

I haven’t needed an alarm clock in years. I try to make the best of it though. After a respond to my bladder alarm it’s time to make inane comments on GoComics. ;-)

My former GP used to tell me not to drink any fluids after 7 pm, that only worked til I had a certain procedure 10 years ago.

Many men can use a portable, handheld urinal.

Roll on to your side with everything pointing away from the bed and pee into the urinal. When you are done put the cap back on and go back to sleep. Easy PEEzy!

Wait till you young guys experience what some of the older guys like me have, and that is an enlarged prostate. 3 times a night is about average for this problem.

My bladder is on Dr. Pepper time…10…2…& 4.

Get up and go as soon as you feel it. It doesn’t get any better and you have more time to get back to sleep.

Four days a week, I get up at 5:25 to come downstairs to turn on a light for when my son brings his dog before he goes to work. I usually try to go back to sleep, but my brain is awake no matter how tired my body is. Then the other 3 days a week, I wake up because it is routine.

Oddly enough, that is the exact time I woke up this morning. Three minutes before my alarm was set for wake up. It was indigestion that got me…

I’m surprised he waited so long.

What’s worse is when the argument is between your brain and your brain.

Burma Shave

Great, now I have to go…

You jump up as if supercharged,

to get all that liquid discharged.

You drag back to bed, this pops in your head:

“That’s not what I wanted enlarged!”

I always wake up a few minutes after 3am to use the bathroom and start the NY Times Spelling Bee.

Oh so true !

The bladder always wins! I know.

If sleep makes the play, who the winner is, “Depends.”

Popular strip today JJ. At least with the older guys…..er….like me.

4 AM is about right.

Several times last night…maybe hold out an hour…

Preaching to the choir.

I don’t understand what it is about the three o’clock hour. And a few friends have also wondered.

and it does suck, every night

4:00 AM is the cut-off. Might as well stay up, there’s no getting back to sleep.

Truth but I learned long ago to not take 22 minutes to decide. He’s right, it’s NEVER wrong.

I agree. Nights are too dam long. A doctor told me that the kidneys go into overdrive when you’re sleeping, since other organs are in “sleep mode” so there’s more bandwidth.

That’s why they’re called the wee hours.

You know you’re old when you read every last one of the pee/sleep comments.

Much as I enjoy Rip Haywire’s giggling fists, I don’t find saying one’s bladder “sings” remotely conveys the way it calls attention to itself. Otherwise I absolutely agree with all the comments above.

We get up at 4:00 a.m.

coming up on 78. Been to a urologist because PSA was too high. On generic cialis and finasteride for 6 months. # dropped back to reasonable. Urologist (who used 2 houses away) said okay no surgery you’re basically too old ,finish pills if you want and that’s it. It is what it is. #1 appears strictly dependent on what and how often I drink two of the diuretics- cola and beer. Which I wont stop. However I seldom have issues away from home but get me within mental and physiological close distance to home and I have about 2-3 minutes max or I’m in serious! trouble.

I am 81 yrs old and do not have this problem. I think my prostate is still healthy and strong because I had lots of “activity” (at least daily most of those years) when I was younger and still as much as I can now. Exercise is good for every body part!