At least the weather was decent.

Lydia checked her watch once more, not because she wanted to know the time – she already knew it was 5:22 – but to silently express her frustration with everyone around her. The red and orange vixen had been ready for almost half an hour now, dressed smartly in a navy blue suit jacket with shiny gold buttons and a matching long skirt, her curly brown hair hanging over the front of both shoulders. She prided herself on always being prepared and punctual, and normally, she could say the same about her crew... but not today.

She watched with displeasure as they continued to fumble about with the cameras, microphones, and other equipment, one of the juniors pulling another tripod out from one of the two large white vans with "HWBC" painted on the side, with a stylized globe drawn inside the curve of the C. Being a local newsreader, especially one who frequently went on-site, was always an interesting job, but today only Lydia and the equipment manager had any notable experience; the rest of the camera crew were all newbies making newbie mistakes. Lydia normally had the patience to deal with one or two of them, but almost the whole crew barely having any idea of what they were doing was grating on her nerves.

Her company phone buzzed, and she took it from her pocket, turning away from the ongoing disaster to answer the call, and facing the large brick building that would be their backdrop. A large sign identified it as "Amber Hills County Junior High", though at this hour, the parking lot they were setting up in was mostly empty and almost all of the building's lights were off; only after-school programs or kids in detention would still be present.

"Hazel Wood Broadcasting Company, Lydia speaking," Lydia answered. Without an on-site producer, she was the one handling communication today.

"It's Principal Hawkins," came a familiar man's voice. "Are you all set up out there?"

"Regrettably, no," Lydia replied, glancing over her shoulder just in time to see one of the juniors trip over a cable. "We're getting set up as quickly as we can, but we need more time. I apologize for the trouble – we'll need to push this back a little." At least it wasn't a live segment; nobody needed the producer to go on one of her furious rants again.

"It'll have to be at 6:00," the principal replied. "I have a meeting at 5:30."

"Six sharp it is, then. Thank you for the understanding," Lydia replied in a pleasant tone that was not matched by the death glare she was shooting towards the camera crew. She exchanged pleasantries and hung up, stuffing her phone back into her pocket as she marched back towards the vans and the mess that was far too slowly beginning to resemble an actual on-site setup.

She got the attention of the equipment manager, a gray wolf who was only getting grayer with age. "Patterson," Lydia said sharply to call him over, folding her arms in displeasure.

He stepped carefully over some thick cables. Like the rest of the crew, he had a white t-shirt with the HWBC logo on it and a pair of jeans, and he looked exhausted. Lydia felt a little sympathy for him; it hadn't been HIS decision to bring an entire crew of juniors, but the producer had decided they needed the good staff for something more important than an extension at a local school.

"Sorry," he started to apologize immediately, ears flattening a bit, "We're almost-"

"We've been pushed back to six o' clock," Lydia cut him off, not wanting to waste time.

"All right," he replied immediately with a nod. "We'll definitely be ready by then, even if I have to do it all myself."

"Try not to," Lydia remarked flatly, "They'll never learn how to do it right if they just watch." Her expression softened a bit as she added, "I don't want you to overwork yourself and collapse, either."

He gave a nervous but good-natured chuckle. "Don't worry about me, I've been through a lot worse," he reassured her, turning around.

"Oh, Patterson?" Lydia called out. When he looked back over his shoulder, she sternly warned, "If you're not ready by six and we have to reschedule, the producer will make someone's head roll, and it won't be mine."

As he hurried to get back to work, Lydia stepped aside to get out of the way and leaned on one of the trucks, pulling out her personal phone with a sigh. There was nothing to do but wait, now. First she sent a message to her fiancé to let him know she'd be home late, then checked in on her friends to pass the time. Unfortunately, Veronica was still driving home, and Sammy was working from home but working late today. That just left Nina, who didn't have a shift scheduled today, and was always much more pleasant to talk to whenever she wasn't dealing with stress from work.

A few minutes later, however, at the time the interview should have ended, her work phone buzzed, this time from her producer. Lydia had to hold the phone several inches away from her ear after breaking the news they had been delayed, patiently waiting out the producer's ranting, while silently glaring at Patterson every time he looked in her direction. "Not to worry," Lydia calmly reassured the producer after waiting several minutes to get a word in edgewise. Making eye contact with the wolf while speaking louder, she continued, "Patterson here has guaranteed me that we'll be ready for the rescheduled interview at six o'clock." The tirade she got in response expressed how the producer felt about that, but ultimately, she hung up on Lydia, and the vixen gave a sigh and pocketed her phone once again.

She was quite used to dealing with the producer, but her sigh was the result of another potential problem: she was supposed to have already been done and on her way back home by now. Instead, with the crew arriving late and then being slow to set up, she'd been waiting much longer than expected, and the vague, easily-ignored need to pee had grown enough that it wasn't so readily ignorable any more. While on the phone her mind had been elsewhere and she'd been shifting around naturally, but without a distraction, her full bladder was at the forefront of her mind.

She checked her watch once more: 5:47, thanks to that phonecall. The interview itself wouldn't take more than a few minutes – as long as the crew was set up properly, of course – but it wouldn't do for her to be fidgeting on-camera. The scene before her was almost but not quite respectable: all but one of the cameras were in their proper positions, and Patterson was almost done getting the boom mic ready. "I'll be right back," she called out to him.

"Wait, where are you going?" the wolf called back, quickly handing off the boom mic to the nearest junior. "It's almost time!"

"I'm aware," Lydia replied flatly, folding her arms. "Which is why I'm going to make a quick trip to the women's room. It won't take long."

"You won't be able to get into the building," he pointed out, "The doors are locked outside of school hours. Whenever I came here to pick up my grandson from soccer practice, I had to wait for one of the teachers to let me in."

She frowned; he had a point. "That's true. I think there was a coffee shop around the corner, so I'll just head over there."

"You don't have time," Patterson insisted, turning away briefly to direct one of the juniors who was setting up the last camera.

"I don't have time because YOU were all late," Lydia retorted, narrowing her eyes.

The crew member with the boom mic volunteered, "There's some bushes over-"

"Oh, yes, right next to a school, brilliant idea," Lydia cut him off. "When parents are coming and going picking up their kids from after-school practice or whatever. What could possibly go wrong with that?" she asked rhetorically.

"Behind the truck, then?" Patterson offered. "You'll be out of sight of the road."

Lydia's exasperated sigh told him exactly what she thought of that. But after a moment, she glanced between the two HWBC trucks, and an idea came to her. "This truck is yours, right?" she asked, turning slightly to bump her elbow against the truck she had been leaning on.

"Yeah-"

She nodded, then straightened up and walked over to the other truck. Its rear doors were closed but the sliding side door was open, and she climbed up into it, grabbing a handle on the inside to help pull herself up. With all of the equipment having been taken out of the truck, there was plenty of space inside now.

"Wait, you can't-" Patterson began.

"If you don't get that last camera set up by the time the principal gets here, you're going to have much bigger problems," Lydia reminded him, grabbing the inside of the sliding door. She stared at him firmly as she pulled the door shut with an air of finality, leaving her alone inside of the equipment truck.

All of the fancy broadcast equipment was in the other truck; this one was just for storage, with a divider between the two seats at the front and the storage area at the back. All that was left inside were a few tied-up lengths of cable, a spare stepladder, and a single folding chair. It was far from an ideal situation, but she only had a few minutes, so she would have to decide on something fast. Simply peeing on the floor was highly uncouth, but it was the best option she had, and at least she would have some privacy in here away from any potential prying eyes...

As she looked around, her gaze returned to the sliding door. It was still securely closed, but she noticed there was a trough there for the door to slide along, also acting as a small stair. It had to be two or three inches deeper than the floor itself, and even with the door closed there was still plenty of space. Making up her mind, Lydia grabbed the folding chair and deftly set it up facing the side door, starting to lift her skirt before shaking her head. No, it was too long, and there was no way she would risk getting it wet. Instead, she took it off and hung it on one of the hooks on the inside of the van that normally held cables, then slid her panties down to her ankles, stepping out of them with just one leg to leave them hanging around her other ankle.

"I can't believe I'm doing this..." she muttered to herself as she sat on the very edge of the chair, spreading her legs wide as she shuffled closer, looking down to make sure the front tails of her suit jacket weren't in any danger of getting wet. Taking deep breaths, she did her best to relax while trying not to think too hard about the time pressure she was under, and soon a trickle of pale yellow urine leaked out of her and onto the floor, quickly picking up to a proper stream. It struck the inside of the sliding door, and thankfully it lacked enough force to make any more noise than a quiet metallic pattering on the surface of the door, rivulets of pee cascading down its surface and into the trough at the bottom. If it was even audible outside at all, the sound of the cars on the nearby road would almost certainly be drowning it out.

Lydia stared impassively just to make sure her aim was close enough, her hands holding onto the chair under her to keep steady. With the pressure in her abdomen abating and a feeling of relief washing over her, she felt a little calmer about the whole situation. One quick interview and she'd be on her way home – and the fools who had shown up late and caused this whole mess would be the ones to clean it up. Her piss was pooling up in the well next to the door, and though she doubted it was truly watertight, whatever was leaking out was clearly doing so at a much slower rate than how quickly she was adding more fluid, her stream holding steady as it gushed from her slit with a quiet hissing sound. Several stray droplets were flying off to the sides, but it was all hitting the door in the end, so she didn't particularly care if it made a bit more of a mess.

The moment she felt her stream starting to weaken, Lydia dug into the inside pocket of her jacket for some tissues, tugging out a half-empty packet. She remained in place, and when the flow of her urine waned enough that it started falling on the floor, her only reaction was to shift her legs even further apart as she waited out the rest of her bladder's contents. The last bit of it annoyingly ended up spilling down underneath her and onto the cheap cushion of the folding chair, and she gave a frustrated sigh as she quickly clenched twice to force out what little remained in her before standing up quickly, legs still parted.

She tended to the spill first, wiping her underside clean with a tissue, tossing it aside before pulling out a second one to dry her slit itself with. Erring on the side of caution, she took a third tissue for a broader wipe, not even bothering to check if it was wet or not before dropping it with the other two. Finally satisfied, she stepped away, pulled her panties back up, and reached for her skirt.

Her ears caught voices outside, muffled by the equipment truck's walls. She put her skirt back on and took a quick moment to check herself using the front-facing camera on her phone – which told her it was 5:58 – to make sure she looked respectable, then opened up the back doors of the truck and climbed out.

Everything, miraculously, was in order: the crew were in their correct positions and, as far as she could tell from her previous experience, it all looked set up correctly. And the new addition to the set was the principal, dressed sharply in a suit and tie of his own, the serval's black hair slicked back between his large ears. He stood at least a head taller than everyone else on set, and Lydia gave him a small wave as she approached and her movement caught his eye.

"Principal Hawkins," she greeted him, "Thank you for coming. We're all ready now."

"Good," he replied, "Shall we?"

Nodding, she directed him in front of the cameras, waiting for the crew member holding the boom mic to get it into position. The interview itself went smoothly, since it was all very routine – introductions, questions about the grant the city had given to the school, their plans for the new gymnasium to replace the old one, and so on. Local news wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but she enjoyed doing it all the same.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could just barely spot the occasional drip of liquid falling from underneath the sliding door on the equipment van, but she put it out of her mind just as quickly. It wasn't her problem to deal with. She also wasn't thinking when she shook hands with the principal at the end of the interview, but it would surely be fine; she hadn't touched herself directly, after all.

With business concluded, the principal bid them farewell and left. Lydia gave a small sigh of relief once he was gone and prepared to head off as well, only to spot one of the juniors pulling open the sliding door on the van. All of her urine that was still in the door trough poured out from it and onto the concrete with a loud splash, taking the crew member by surprise.

"Try your best to be on time in future; you simply cannot be late in this industry," Lydia remarked while looking down at her phone. "Otherwise events will happen without you, and all you will be left with is the cleanup." Turning and starting to walk away, she added, "Do remind whoever sent only juniors out here of that, would you?"
