Public Ladies rooms...

[Chris B]

When you have to visit a public lavatory, you usually find a queue 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
handbag 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 handbag. 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 handbag, which is hanging around your neck in front
of your chest, and you and your handbag topple backward against the
cistern 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 out inconspicuously to the sinks.

Now, 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 queue 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 lavatories. Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long,
and why is your handbag hanging around your neck?"

This is dedicated to women everywhere who have to deal with a public
lavatory. 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 loos in pairs. It's so the other gal can hold the
door, hang onto your handbag and hand you Kleenex under the door.