Improvability Blog

When you have to visit a public toilet, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the cubicle doors. Every cubicle is occupied.

Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the cubicle. You get in to find the door won’t latch. You don’t care! The wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants!

The dispenser for the modern ‘seat covers’ (invented by someone’s Mum, no doubt) is handy, but empty.

You would hang your bag on the door hook if there was one so you carefully, but quickly, drape it around your neck, (Mum would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!) down with your pants and assume ‘The Stance’.

In this position, your ageing, un-toned thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but having NOT taken time to wipe the seat or to lay toilet paper on it, you have to hold ‘The Stance.’

To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be an empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Dear, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake even more.

You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday – the one that’s still in your bag (the bag around your neck – that now you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That will have to do, so you crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail.

Then – someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your bag, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest and you and your bag topple backward against the tank
of the toilet.

“Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, while losing your footing altogether and sliding down directly onto the TOILET SEAT…

… which 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 the time to try.

You know that 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 fire hose against the inside of the bowl and spraying a fine mist of water that covers your bum and runs down your legs and into your shoes.

The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. At this point, you give up. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You’re utterly exhausted.

You try to wipe with a sweet wrapper you found in your pocket and then try to slink out inconspicuously to the sinks. 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 who are still waiting.

You no longer feel able to smile politely.

A kind soul at the very end of the line 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, plonk it in the woman’s hand and tell her with a sad smile, “Here, you just might need this.”

As you exit you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men’s toilet. Annoyed, he dares to ask, “What took you so long and why is your bag hanging round your neck?”

This is dedicated to women everywhere who have to deal with any public restrooms / toilets (rest??? you’ve GOT to be kidding!).

It finally explains to men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other commonly-asked question, “Why do women go to the toilets in pairs?” It’s so that the other one can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you a Kleenex under the door.

This HAD to be written by a woman! No one else could have described it so accurately. Thanks to Zena from South Africa, who so kindly sent me this. I laughed til I cried.

Send this to anyone who might need a good laugh today.

Just in case you are having a rough day, here is a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological journals.

The funny thing is that it really does work and will make you smile..

1. Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream..

2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water

3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air

4. No one knows your secret place

5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world

6. The soothing sound of a gentle water fall fills the air with a cascade of serenity

7. The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater

There!! See? It really does work… You’re smiling already. Feel free to forward this if you know anyone else who might benefit from this stunning technique.

This made me laugh out loud and arrived in my inbox earlier this week just when I needed to hear something to lift my spirits. Hope it works for you too.

It was sent to me by my aunt who will be 86 years old next month. She emails me all sorts of uplifting anecdotes, photos and poems under her internet pseudonym of Cyber Gran! Now that’s what I call living a full and purposeful life!

I wish you everything I wish for myself.

Warmest regards,
Kim