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 some 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 you now have to hold up while trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That will 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.
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, plonk it in 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 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 toilets. It finally explains to men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other commonly asked question about why women go to the toilet in pairs... It's so the other girl can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you Kleenex under the door.
This was one of those e-mail messages that goes around, so you may have already seen it. But just in case you haven't, I couldn't help posting it just to share the laughs!
19 comments:
Brilliant!
Ha ha it is so funny and I have not seen this b4 so thanx for sharing. I dont use pub toilets I'd rather pass out but on the rare occassion I do I always pray that there is no toilet brush around cos I will clean it. Yes I am the weird lady u will find scrubbing toilets in and outside my home.
Love love love it! and yes, my mom taught me the same....as I have taught my son....hopefully! :P
I am the weird lady who scrubs her hands and then hangs around waiting for someone ELSE to open the public toilet door so that I can slip out without having to touch the door handle!
haha! That was great! :o)
bahahaha! I really needed that today. Oh...been there...Thanks so much!
I haven’t seen it before either, but will be emailing it to everyone I know now. Hilarious :)
The enigmatic, masked blogger
I loved it! If it isn't the truth, then I don't know what is! Thanks for the laugh.
♥ Mary Mary
That was great -- and really sad that it's a recurring truth.
Hilarious and painfully true!
Awesome!!! Thank you for sharing. Fortunately, I have yet to have an experience QUITE this awful. But it's been close.
Thanks for the explanation. Inquiring minds like mine want to know. No worries on my part, although I'll be concerned when I see two guys get up to use the bathroom.
Rachel i do the same with the door! - and i "bum" my way in through the door 2!
This is hilarious!! One of my worst nightmares :)
LOL
Rach
I had no idea what you poor women went through just to use the john. I think every husband/boyfriend should read this. They would never pick on you ladies for taking too long again!
Very well written and HYSTERICAL! I needed a good laugh today. Thank you Rachel.
Michael
Glad you've all been laughing!
Wish I'd written it...
I really do carry my own tissues around for this reason among others. I was never a girl guide, but even so...
And hey, I count 'the stance' as a major part of my weekly exercise. Really tones the tummy and thighs...
:-)
It is funny and I hadn't seen it before but I had an uncannily similar experience today... in a squat loo in Kuala Lumpur! I had to return to my hotel to wash my feet and flip flops!
(Sorry.)
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