This is a bit long, but quite a chuckle!
(caution: may be a bit to graphic for some)
Public Toilets
Mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little girl, she'd bring me in the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the seat. Then, she'd carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she'd instruct, "Never, never sit on a public toilet seat." And she'd demonstrate "The Stance," which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat. But by this time, I'd have peed down my leg. And we'd go home.
That was a long time ago.
I've had lots of experience with public toilets since then, but I'm
still not particularly fond of public toilets, especially those with powerful, red-eye sensors. Those toilets know when you want them to flush. They are psychic toilets. But I always confuse their psychic ability by following my mother's advice and assuming "The Stance."
"The Stance" is excruciatingly difficult to maintain when one's
bladder is especially full. This is most likely to occur after watching a full-length feature film. During the movie pee, it is nearly impossible to hold "The Stance." You know what I mean. You drink a two liter cup of Diet Coke, then sit still through a three-hour saga because, for God's sake, even if you didn't wipe or wash your hands in the ba! throom, you'd still miss the
pivotal part of the movie or the second scene, in which they flash the leading man's naked derriere. So, you cross your legs and you hold it. And you hold it until that first credit rolls and you sprint to the bathroom, about ready to explode all over your internal organs.
And at the bathroom, you find a line of women that makes you think there's a half-price sale on Mel Gibson's underwear in there. So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, also crossing their legs and smiling politely.
And you finally get closer. You check for feet under the stall
doors. Every one is occupied. You hope no one is doing frivolous things behind those stall doors, like blowing her nose or checking the contents of her wallet.
Finally, a stall door opens and you dash, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter. You hang your handbag on the door hook, yank down your pants and assume "The Stance." Relief. More relief. Then your thighs 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" as your thighs
experience a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale.
To take your mind off it, you reach for the toilet paper. Might as
well be ready when you are done. The toilet paper dispenser is empty. Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny napkin you wiped your fingers on after eating buttered popcorn. It would have to do. You crumble 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 and your pocketbook whams you in the head. "Occupied!" you scre! am as you reach for the door, dropping your buttered popcorn napkin in a puddle and falling backward, directly onto the toilet seat.
You get up quickly, but it's too late. Your bare bottom has made
contact with all the germs and life forms on the bare seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper, not that there was any, even if you had enough time to.
And your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew, because her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, "You don't know what kind of diseases you could get." And by this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a fountain and then it suddenly sucks everything
down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to China.
At that point, you give up. You're finished peeing. You're soaked
by the splashing water. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a Chiclet wrapper you found in your pocket, then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. You can't figure out how to operate the sinks with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and unable to smile politely at this point.
One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that you are
trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long as the Mississippi River. You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and say warmly, "Here! You might need this."
At this time, you see your spouse, who has entered, used and exited his bathroom and read a copy of "War and Peace" while waiting for you. "What took you so long?" he asks, annoyed. This is when you kick him sharply in the shin and go home.
This is dedicated to all women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public toilet. And it finally explains to all you men what takes us so long.
Okay fess up-how many of you have dashed into the men's room in your younger days, at say a concert. No line in the men's room, but 40 deep in the ladies room.
I have no problem using the men's room...as long as I have a look out! Try it once...you're in and out while all the ladies are still waiting in line...you'll never stand in line again! Well actually, my sister and I stood in a very short line for the men's room once. It moved quickly! We were at a concert and didn't miss a thing!
Jen
OK, I know this was a joke but I just have to comment. Urine is STERILE. Sitting on a toilet seat, provided you lay down toilet paper or at least make sure that no "open skin" touches the seat, is perfectly safe. You cannot catch anything from a toilet seat, not even clamydia as was once thought.
What is disgusting is people who do "the stance", leave the seat splattered with urine OR WORSE, and don't bother to clean it. You are so concerned about your own cleanliness, but don't care about anyone elses. Just another example of how selfish our society has become.
That is all SO TRUE!! My Mom was the same. Strange that she thought sitting on a public toilet seat could give us untold germs but she thought nothing of spitting on a used tissue to wipe chocolate ice cream off my face. YUCK! I vowed to never do that to my children and I never did.
One little tidbit is missing from your public washroom saga and that is the proven fact that the women's washrooms are always more distant than the men's. We have smaller bladders and generally shorter legs but we still have to run farther to relieve ourselves. I finally figured out that they put our bathrooms at the end of the hall so those nasty peeping Toms don't find it easy to get a glimpse of us. What else could it be?
Public Toilets
story of a woman's life.
