the stance
My mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little girl, she'd
take 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 wet down
my leg. And we'd go home.
That was a long time ago. Even now in our more mature years, "The
Stance" is excruciatingly difficult to maintain when one's bladder is
especially full. When you have to "go" in a public 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.
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 purse 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, but the toilet
paper dispenser is empty. Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny
tissue that you blew your nose on that's in your purse. 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 purse whams you in the head. "Occupied!" you scream as you reach
out for the door, dropping your tissue 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 soaked by the splashing water.
You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a Chicklet 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 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! |
