Public Washroom
Only a
woman will TRULY relate to the following, but it's a "hoot" for
all!
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 wet down my leg and we'd go
home.
That was a
long time ago. Even now in our more mature years, The Stance is excruciatingly
difficult to maintain when one's bladder is especially
full.
When you
have to "go" in a public bathroom, you find a line of women that makes you think
there's a half-price sale on Nelly'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. 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 purse 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. The toilet paper dispenser is
empty. Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your
nose on-that's in your purse. 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 purse whams you in the
head. "Occupied!"
you scream as you reach out for the door, dropping your tissue 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 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 the woman's hand
and say warmly, Here. "You might need this"
At this
time, you see your man, 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.
PS - The
answer to the other question, why women go in pairs. So the other woman can hold
the door and hand you Kleenex.
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