Friday, March 16, 2012

The one in which I talk a lot about restrooms and what really goes on in there


Today was just one of those days when I was so restless. I mean, how many times can you look yourself up in Google? Nothing new ever comes up. That’s probably because no-one hides in the bushes outside my house, and rifles through my trash, or follows me around with a camera and takes pictures of me every time I go for a walk in my Chanel boots, CK jeans, Ralph Lauren sweater and Gucci shades. And no-one is ever around to take a picture of me getting into a car without any underwear on and flashing my hoo-ha at the world (and Mom, in case any of this gets back to you, I swear I would never do that! I am still the good Catholic girl you raised me to be).

Oh, right. Because that only happens to Kate Beckinsale and Britney Spears.


Just then, my friend Joe calls (Yeah, let's just call him that, because that is so not his name, but he doesn't want to be in the same story as hoo-has). Now what do you calling timing like that, if not a completely open and tantalising invitation to mess with his head? He calls me every other day, and sometimes twice a day when I'm PMS-ish, just to ensure that I’m not pulling out my fingernails one by one, or sobbing my heart out because the anti-virus software on my laptop won't update itself, or sometimes, just to check that I'm still at my desk, and not out on the street screaming at and chasing cars. You can tell I'm PMS-ish even while I’m writing this. You can, can't you? See? You're getting good at this already.

All he asked me was whether WhatsApp is an exclusive iPhone app. Now that is what is called an innocuous question in a normal, not-possessed-by-hormone-demons-world, isn’t it? According to him, the world is quite simply divided into people who use iPhones and people who don’t. He's an iBitch (or a bitch to all things i) and how dare the rest of the world, the general public, mere mortals, use an app that  iPhone users use? I told him that it's a cross-platform app, and that almost gave him a brain aneurysm, because that was like being made to use a public washroom, and then wash one’s hands with the same bar of soap that common people used! People who blew their noses, and washed their bums! People who didn’t use handwash! People who didn’t use iPhones, goddammit! People who ended every sentence with an exclamation mark! He was all like-How (sputter, sputter, frothing at the mouth) offensive!

And because I am Legion (non-Christian folk might want to look him up here) at this time of the month, I veered the conversation towards how women pee in public restrooms. Just like that. Just for fun. Guys like to pretend that this is one of those things that don’t exist-like breast milk and babies coming out of you-know-where. Pee osmoses itself out of women’s bodies. That’s the official story, guys. And Santa exists too.

So I started with the pose- the classic squatting in mid-air position, the Kegels, the plastering the toilet seat with toilet paper, the flushing of the toilet with the elbow, the CSI-type examination of the garbage bin’s contents, even though all we’re going to do is just add another piece of used tissue paper to the already burgeoning  pile. And running out in HORROR! and PANIC! of the magnitude reserved for a situation where, suppose you entered a stall, and there, before your very eyes, was a vampire chomping on the body of a victim, while the head floated in a pool of blood in the commode, and Jason Voorhees and Freddie Kruger were standing on either side of the commode lying in wait for you.Yeah. THAT’s how we react when we walk into a stall in a public restroom and we realize that someone’s left their, er...stuff behind, and forgotten to flush.

“And Joe,”  I whispered, “women have gas too. And they stink up the place something awful. And let me tell you, it does not smell of roses.”

Remember the movie Unfaithful with Olivier Martinez (swoon!) and Diana Swing Diane Lane (Yeah, OK. Freudian slip. If you insist.) are getting wild in the public restroom? Well, that's a fantasy he's harboured all these years. It involves a complete stranger, and a stall in a public restroom, and, well...you get the idea. Well, I sooooooo shot it down. Poof! Gone, forever. Just like that.

I am Legion, for we are many.

And then I went outside and chased passing cars.

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