Sunday, 8 June 2008

Horribly, hilariously accurate!

When you have to visit a public toilet, 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 cubicle doors. Every cubicle is occupied.

Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman
leaving the cubicle. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't
matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants!

The dispenser for the modern 'seat covers' (invented by someone's Mum,no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your bag on the door hook, if
there was one, so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck,(Mum would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!) down with
your pants and assume 'The Stance'.

In this position, your aging, toneless, thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd
love to sit down, but having not taken time to wipe the seat or to lay toilet paper on it, 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, 'Dear, 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 bag (the bag around your neck, that now you have to
hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have
to do, so you crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work.
The door hits your bag, which is hanging around your neck in front of your
chest and you and your bag 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, while losing your footing
altogether and sliding 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 fire hose against the
inside of the bowl and spraying a fine mist of water that covers your bum
and runs down your legs and into your shoes.

The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force and you grab onto
the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too.

At this 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 sweet wrapper you
found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

You can't figure out how to operate the taps 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 in the woman's hand and tell
her warmly, 'Here, you just might need this.

As you exit, you spot your singificant other, who has long since entered, used and left the men's toilet. Annoyed, he asks, 'What took you so long and why is your
bag hanging around your neck?

This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with any public rest
rooms/toilets (rest??? you've GOT to be kidding!!). It finally explains to
the men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other
commonly asked question about why women go to the toilets in pairs. It's so
the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you Kleenex
under the door.

This HAD to be written by a woman! No one else could describe it so
accurately.

...and on a personal note I might add, when one is only 5' short, trying to 'adopt the stance' at all presents a whole other set of problems! You guys have it easy!

5 Comments:

Jennytc said...

All this is so true, Gemmak! I can identify with everything except the dispenser of toilet covers. Obviously this new item has not yet reached us in the 'frozen north'. I await it with interest!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely, cringe-makingly accurate!

OH often tells me, smugly, that it's the women's public toilets that are the disgrace, that the mens' are fine. I have two answers to this:

1) Men rarely use the cubicles, and they certainly don't use them to stand up and pee in

2) It is the Ladies' toilets where everyone takes their kids to pee. All of the young girls and most of the young boys use the Ladies'. This means all of the inaccurate pee-producers are in OUR side! And when a harrassed woman with three kids is using the facilities, she can't be keeping an eye on all of them at once, so the toilet roll gets dropped and the soap gets messy and water gets squirted.

It's not the whole story - there are some seriously messy women out there - but I think it's at least part of the explanation. Also, of course, there simply aren't enough of them.

Snowbabies said...

Now I know why Debbie's face sometimes looks like thunder when she emerges from a public loo!

Paul.

Anonymous said...

LOL, gemmak - absolutely right!

There's also a version when you are on holiday at the beach .... you are in a one piece swimming costume which you cannot take off to go because the door has no lock. So you assume The Stance with embellishments - holding the bottom of said swimming suit to one side with one hand; keeping the door shut with your head (because the cubicle is so small) or other hand. Then you realise that the sewers in this place don't accept paper as that MUST be what is in that overflowing bin in the corner and where's the paper ... Ah, someone took the last bit and the new roll is on top of the water heater which requires you to release everything, stand on the toilet seat and s t r e t c h for it.
Not a good experience - usually Greek!

btw - you n Fletch are naughty - I seen what you done over at ZC's

belle

Kitty said...

You just need to add in the fact of the tiny-ass cubicle beeing sooooo small that wide loads (like me) can barely get in and have to straddle the loo in order to shut the door.

Oh and forget going to the loo completely if you are out shopping as a lone parent with a toddler in a pushchair, who somehow also has to miraculously fit into the cubicle with you becuase there is no way on this planet (or any other) that you are leaving him alone outside the cubicle for the time it'll take to pee, wipe and flush.

Not that I speak from personal experience..... much :-|