I'm on the way to the doctor with Wesley. Again.
He tells us this morning his ear hurts. Oh, and maybe his throat, too. A little. So. Back we go.
But before I go, here's another one that makes me do the silent shake... cause every word is true. This has, indeed, happened to every female:
My mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little
girl, she'd bring me in the stall, teach me to wad up
toilet paper and wipe the seat. Then, she'd carefully lay
strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she'd
instruct, "Never, never sit on a public toilet seat." And
she'd demonstrate "The Stance," which consisted of
balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without
actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the
toilet seat. But by this time, I'd have peed down my leg.
And we'd go home.
That was a long time ago. I've had lots of experience
with public toilets since then, but I'm still not
particularly fond of public toilets, especially those with
powerful, red-eye sensors. Those toilets know when you
want them to flush. They are psychic toilets. But I always
confuse their psychic ability by following my mother's
advice and assuming The Stance. The Stance is
excruciatingly difficult to maintain when one's bladder is
especially full.
This is most likely to occur after watching a full-length
feature film. During the movie pee, it is nearly
impossible to hold The Stance. You know what I mean. You
drink a two liter cup of Diet Coke, then sit still through
a three-hour saga because, for goodness sake, even if you
didn't wipe or wash your hands in the bathroom, you'd
still miss the pivotal part of the movie or the second
scene, in which they flash the leading man's naked
derriere.
So, you cross your legs and you hold it. And you hold it
until that first credit rolls and you sprint to the
bathroom, about ready to explode all over your internal
organs. And at the bathroom, you find a line of women that
makes you think there's a half-price sale on Mel Gibson's
underwear in there.
So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies,
also crossing their legs and smiling politely. And you
finally get closer. You check for feet under the stall
doors. Every one is occupied. You hope no one is doing
frivolous things behind those stall doors, like blowing
her nose or checking the contents of her wallet. Finally,
a stall door opens and you dash, nearly knocking down the
woman leaving the stall.
You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't
matter. You hang your handbag on the door hook, yank down
your pants and assume The Stance. Relief. More relief.
Then your thighs begin to shake. You'd love to sit down
but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or
lay toilet paper on it, so you hold The Stance as your
thighs experience a quake that would register an eight on
the Richter scale. To take your mind off it, you reach for
the toilet paper. Might as well be ready when you are
done. The toilet paper dispenser is empty.
Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny napkin you
wiped your fingers on after eating buttered popcorn. It
would have to do. You crumble it in the puffiest way
possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail. Someone
pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn't work
and your pocketbook whams you in the head. "Occupied!" you
scream as you reach out for the door, dropping your
buttered popcorn napkin in a puddle and falling backward,
directly onto the toilet seat.
You get up quickly, but it's too late. Your bare bottom
has made contact with all the germs and life forms on the
bare seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper, not
that there was any, even if you had enough time to. And
your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew,
because her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat
because, frankly, "You don't know what kind of diseases
you could get."
And by this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the
toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream
of water akin to a fountain and then it suddenly sucks
everything down with such force that you grab onto the
toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to China.
At that point, you give up. You're finished peeing. You're
soaked by the splashing water. You're exhausted.
You try to wipe with a Chicklet wrapper you found in your
pocket, then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. You
can't figure out how to operate the sinks with the
automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a
dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still
waiting, cross-legged and unable to smile politely at this
point.
One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that
you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as
long! as the Mississippi River. You yank the paper from
your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and say warmly,
"Here You might need this."
Outside, you see your spouse, who has entered, used and
exited his bathroom and read a copy of War and Peace while
waiting for you. "What took you so long?" he asks,
annoyed. This is when you kick him sharply in the shin and
go home.
This is dedicated to all women everywhere who have ever
had to deal with a public toilet. And it finally explains
to all you men what takes us so long.
