From Elsewhere:
The restroom dance
Subject: What Public Restrooms are like for Women
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 knocking
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 mom'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 on 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 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 are 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
outinconspicuously to the sinks.Now, 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 into 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.
--
Atheist n A person to be pitied in that he is
unable to believe things for which there is
no evidence, and who has thus deprived himself of
a convenient means of feeling superior to others.
—Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic’s Dictionary
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