WHEN YOU GOTTA GO...to a public bathroom (written by a woman)

My mother was a regular visitor of the public bathrooms. Even when I was still very small, she was taking me to a bathroom, teaching me to clean the seat of the toilet with toilet paper and to carefully put strips of paper on the perimeter of the seat. Finally she was instructing me: "Never, never sit on a toilet in a public bathroom". And then she was showing me "the position" of balancing the body in a “sitting position” without it making any contact with the toilet seat.

That was long ago, and today in our more mature years, "the position" is painfully difficult to maintain when your bladder is about to burst. When you "must go" to a public bathroom, you find a line of women so long it makes you think that Brad Pitt’s skivvies are on sale and at half price. So you wait patiently and you smile amiably to the others that also are discreetly crossing their legs, and about the kind of stupid things that only single women in a line to pee can talk about.

Finally it’s your turn, you check underneath each stall door to see if there are any legs. All are occupied, finally one opens and you throw yourself in, almost pushing into the person who is leaving. You enter and realize that the bolt on the door isn’t working; no problem... you will keep it closed with your hand. When you want to hang your purse on a hook that should be on the door....., there is no hook, so you hang it on your neck trying to balance it underneath your breasts, trying not to concentrate on the strap breaking your neck because of all the stuff you had been throwing inside the purse. Relief...... Ahhhhhh..... More relief... but suddenly you have a desire to fart, yet you resist out of fear of making a sound like a whistle of an old locomotive that would be heard in stalls on both sides. So on the one hand, you are emptying your bladder and on the other you keep your ass tightened so you don’t fart.... suddenly your cell phone rings – and, obviously, it’s in the purse. Now is when your thighs begin to shake.... you would love to sit down, but you didn’t have time to clean the toilet seat nor cover it with paper, so you remain in "the position" while your legs shake so hard that they would register 8 on the Richter scale, without counting the fine drizzle of the spurt that bounces off the stoneware floor and drenches your socks, AND THAT OTHERS WILL SURELY NOTICE!!!

Luckily the telephone stopped ringing. To move your mind away of the misfortune, you look for the roll of toilet paper, but nooooooo! the roll is empty.... Your legs are shaking even more. You remember that small piece of paper with which you cleaned your nose a while ago. That would have to be sufficient. You try to puff it up but it is smaller than the nail of your finger and in addition it’s still covered with snot...

At that moment, somebody pushes the door of your stall and as the bolt doesn’t work and your hands are occupied, you receive a tremendous blow in the head. You scream like crazy:

"IT’S OCCUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIED!!!!

While you continue pushing the door with your free hand, the cell phone rings again and in an attempt to turn it off, the small piece of "kleenex" that you had in your hand it falls precisely into that small pool on the floor and you are not sure if it is water or hmmmm... piss....ha! Your legs can no longer hold you, you back up a step and you fall, sitting on the toilet. You rise quickly and with disgust, but it is too late; your ass has already made contact with the enemy, with all the germs and life forms living on the seat, because you never covered it with toilet paper, that wasn’t there anyway, even if you had had time to do it. Not counting the blow in the head, the neck almost broken with the purse strap, the splashes of pee on the legs and the socks, which......... shoot! are still wet.... a memory of your mother comes to your mind telling you "what a disgrace!!!... don’t you know about all the kinds of diseases you could catch here.......".

But the story doesn’t end here... now the automatic sensor of the toilet is so confused with all your movements that it lets out all the water there was in the reservoir with such force that you have to grab the tube that holds the toilet paper (when there is some) for fear of being sucked into the toilet and appearing in China.

Here is when you finally surrender. You are soaked by the water that came from the toilet like from a fountain, you are exhausted, you try to dry yourself with a cellophane wrap of Adams bubblegum; and then you proceed to the sink. You don’t know how the automatic sensors work so you clean your hands with saliva, you dry them with a paper towel, you go toward the exit passing the line of women waiting with the legs crossed, and at the moment you are incapable of smiling nicely.

A compassionate soul at the end of the line tells you that you are dragging toilet paper the length of the Mississippi river stuck your shoe...! You tear it off of the shoe, you shove it in the hand of the woman who told you about the paper and you say to her smoothly: "Here, take it... you may need it!!!" and leave.

At this moment you look at your husband who has entered, used and left the men’s bathroom and who had more than enough time to read War and Peace while he was waiting for you. “What took you so long?” he asks you in an alarmed voice... "I was worried... I even called your cell twice in case something had happened to you... and you didn’t answer!!!!” Here it is when once and for all you tell him to piss off and go to hell.

The person who sent it to me has dedicated it to all the women who have ever had to use a public bathroom. Finally, this explains to men, why the women take so much time in the bathroom.

Regards,
Adela Micha, Entertainer of Mexican TV
(Translated from Spanish by Marzena)