A story

On Sunday I got up nice and early, got into the car ready for my day to start and then got so bogged down in traffic that my socks are still wet. And I wasn’t even wearing any socks.

That has nothing to do with my story, I’m just still a little angry about Sunday drivers lumbering along at ten kilometres below the speed limit and getting in the way of my plans.

My story actually comes courtesy of my sister.

Kate and I share a fear of public toilets. Not only because of the menacing thought that someone’s arse has been there before (and even if you are the master of squatting, your naked arse is still occupying the same space that some foreign naked arse occupied mere moments before), but because you just never know what state you’ll find them in. Walking towards an unoccupied public toilet is one of the most unnerving things on the planet.

So usually we are the sort of people who avoid toilet stories, just in case we get so scarred that we never go to the toilet again. But while we were waiting for our friend to do her business in a public toilet on Sunday, Kate suffered a toilet story flashback and started giggling. She then told me the story and we were laughing so uncontrollably that for a few terrifying seconds I considered using that public toilet. But I didn’t. I would never.

Here’s the story:

On a recent trip to Italy Kate discovered automatic toilets (the coin-operated kind that self-clean after every use and aren’t half bad as far as public toilets go). Apparently while Kate was silently applauding these toilets, a Good Samaritan was also in the area trying to trick the system. This kind soul saw a couple of girls busting to use the loo as she was walking out of it, so she held open the door and told them to run in so that they wouldn’t have to pay. Awesome plan!

Or it would have been an awesome plan if not for the self-cleaning part; the part where the toilet locks itself so that nobody can come in (or out) and then douses itself with water and toilet-cleaning chemicals. The part where the two girls got locked in a self-cleaning toilet against their will and unable to escape, unable to do anything except endure the shower of water and brushes and soap products. Once the ordeal was over, dripping and smelling of clean toilet, they had to emerge, slip in a couple of coins and go back in to pee.

I will forever be grateful to my sister for telling me that story.