Women and Rest Rooms
When you have to visit a public bathroom, you
usually find a line of women, so you smile politely
and take your place.
Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the
stall doors.
Every stall is occupied.
Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knock
down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the
door won't latch. It doesn't matter.
The dispenser for the modern "seat covers"
(invented by someone's Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang
your purse on the door hook, if there were one, but there isn't -
so you carefully but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn
over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants,
and assume "The Stance."
In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles
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."
To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you
reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser.
In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice
saying, "Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have
KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your
nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. That would have
to do. You crumple 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.
The door hits your purse, which is hanging around
your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple
backward against the tank of the toilet. "Occupied!" you scream, as you reach
for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a
puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly
onto the TOILET SEAT.
It is wet of course.
You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too
late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ
and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down
toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try.
You know that your mother would be utterly appalled
if she knew, because, you're certain, her bare bottom never
touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, "You just don't
KNOW what kind of diseases you could get."
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of
the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of
water like a firehose that somehow sucks everything down with
such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for
fear of being dragged in too. At that point, you give up.
You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet
toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you
found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the
sinks.
You can't figure out how to operate the faucets
with the automatic sensors,
so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper
towel and walk past the line of women, still waiting. You are no longer
able to smile politely to them.
A kind soul at the very end of the line points out
a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was
that when you NEEDED it??)
You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it the
woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this."
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long
since entered, used and left the men's restroom. Annoyed, he asks,
"What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your
neck?"
This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal
with a public restroom (rest??? you've got to be kidding!!). It
finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It
also answers their other commonly asked question about why women go to
the restroom in pairs.
It's so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto
your purse and hand you Kleenex under the door.
Chatboard (0)