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 wait has been so long you are about to wet
your pants! 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 was 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. (Oh yeah,
the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold
up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time).
That would have to do. 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 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 fire hose against the inside of
the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers
Cont.