Making It Up As I Go Along #234

MONDAY…
--- Work is alright… go for a bike ride afterwards and make some spaghetti for supper. A few e-mails end the night.

TUESDAY…
--- Alright day at work and a nap when I get home.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Really busy at work. I’m not very busy at all until about 9:00 but from then on it’s go time right until about 2:30. Makes the day go by fast though. Lunch is good too with lasagna at HQ with Leslie and Melissa.
--- After work drinks and a snack at the bar nearest me.

THURSDAY…
--- Kind of busy at work and it’s pizza day so we get extra time off to line up and get it.
--- After work I go to the movies with Melissa. The Mayfair has “An Inconvenient Truth” and it’s good… well done and makes you think.

FRIDAY…
--- Busy day again today. Lunch with Leslie and Melissa is good… Laura cracks me up once or twice… I have a few quick e-mails with Jim when I get home… and then watch a movie on the movie network. Derailed is alright… Clive Owen is good and Jennifer Aniston is doing about as much as she can.

SATURDAY…
--- Wedding day. I go to Carole’s wedding with Kiyomi. It’s fine as far as weddings go and it’s fun hanging out with Kiyomi… good roast beef too.


Public Torture Chambers
So I have come to a conclusion. It has taken years of research to figure it out but last night swayed my opinion to one very important statement. Public washrooms are to be avoided at all costs!

Sure I’ve been in baseball stadium washrooms. They feel like you’ve just stepped into a room of infinite pee. Like every wall and spot of the floor has, within the last two hours, been coated with urine.

But last night was the final straw. The washroom at Carole’s wedding was clean enough. There was nothing obscene going on in there either. But I found myself standing perplexed at the door of a stall wondering if I would have to crawl out from underneath the locked door.

The first time in there, I made the mistake of pulling the lock latch across, while also flipping the little handle part down (for extra security). The problem with this is the fact that, once dropped into the mega lock position, the latch froze tightly. Latch riggormortis set in.

So when I was ready to exit the stall, I had to try to tear my fingers apart, digging that jagged little latch into my flesh in the hopes of gaining a good enough grip to free myself from my toilet tomb.

Finally, desperate, I took my key out of my pocket and pried it between the metal and wood of the door. A muscled twitch of my wrist popped the lock and enabled me to slide it open. I ran from the stall and towards freedom… with a stop at the sink to wash my hands of course.

A second journey into the room came an hour or so later. Truth be told, I was feeling nervous about it. I was tempted to head outside, venture out into a farmers field and find myself a bush.

But the decision was to push the metal bar across yet not to drop the bolt down. Surly I’d be able to escape without the need of a lever this time.

There would be a price to pay for such a plan. And that price was paid in blood.

The metal slide stuck in the open position this time and, with my tug to get it moving, my hand slips off and my finger slices across the protruding handle. A bubble of blood wells up out of the divot just above my top knuckle of my pointer finger.

So I’m using the washroom while attempting to stem the bleeding. All while others enter and leave the room, seemingly with total ease.

I get the door open again without any aid. But I’m defeated and go to the sink while watching my wound well up again. Washed up, all that’s left is the paper towel… how hard can that be?

Well, with an audience of the father of the bride, my pushes on the towel dispenser yield minute amounts of paper. Five or six pushes, either done with quick force or with a slow and patient compression, only give me a few centimetres of towel. I pluck at it and try to tear off all I can… hoping to manage to pull more out from within the dispenser.

It isn’t to be. I dry my hands with torn squares of brown paper and push it into the trash with Mr. McKay proclaiming “They don’t make it easy do they?”

I laugh wearily and agree before exiting the torturous world of bladder relief. I make up my mind right there and then that my next trip to the washroom will be when I return to my own house. At least there I’ll be confident to find relief without bloodshed.