The Wrong Bathroom Door
This is a true story. It happened to me when I was 12 or 13, I forget exactly. I was at the airport. I was with a few friends, saying our goodbyes to a particular friend of ours who was about to migrate to another country with his family. Around 15 minutes before they were about to board, I decided to go to the bathroom. I had drank a little too much water at the time, you see.
Upon entering the bathroom door, I heard a faint shout from somewhere at the background of my periphery, yelling “Wait!” I looked back for a fraction of a second whilst walking but saw no one. It was probably nothing, so I continued to walk into the bathroom. The bathroom was empty. But upon entering, I noticed there weren’t any urinals. “Urghh…airport bathrooms…” I grumpily murmured. “The government can’t do anything right these days…” So I entered one of the cubicle closet areas, closed and locked the door and proceeded to relieve myself there.
Just as I was about to unlock the door and walk out, I heard a voice. Two voices, in fact. Voices so terrifying that it pulled my soul violently out of my body for a few seconds. They were the voices of two females. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, possibly applying some make up whilst gossiping about another female.
It was then that I realized why someone had shouted “Wait!” to me just a few minutes ago right before I entered the bathroom. It was then that I realized why there were no urinals in this bathroom. It was not the government’s fault. It was my fault. I had mistakenly entered the female bathroom.
These are the moments in life one is never — and will never — be prepared for. There is no Greek philosophy; no Confucian guidance on what to do in the case of one mistakenly entering and relieving oneself in the wrong bathroom. These are the moments where I have to quickly think on my feet and come up with a plan — a miraculous grand strategy to somehow quietly get myself out of this mortifying debacle I have put myself into.
So there I was, inside that small cubicle — thanking God (or whoever is up there) for not having allowed me to open that cubicle door just a few seconds earlier. So I waited. And waited. And waited for the two women to finish gossiping and to walk out — so as to afford me the opportunity to swiftly sneak out, move on with my life, and to never recall this humiliation for the rest of my existence.
But they would not stop talking; would not stop gossiping about this painfully narcissistic co-worker who is apparently making everyone’s life miserable. “Please…” I silently prayed to myself. “Please just let this go… forgive her and move on….” I was suddenly transmitting wise advice on forgiveness to two complete strangers inside a bathroom cubicle I had no business being in.
My very dignity was resting on how quickly these two women 5 feet away from me were able to let go of their indignance on this particular other woman. The irony of it is that I had nothing to do with any of it, and yet there I was, in the middle of it all.
After about 10 excruciating minutes, the gossiping had not stopped. Infact, it had gotten increasingly worse. More heated at the passing of each minute. “Do you remember when she called me a bitch?!” “No she did not! Tell me what happened?!” And on and on it went. I realized that I had to do something — something quick.
I cannot stay in hiding much longer. I cannot rest my bets on women to stop talking anytime soon. No man would win such a bet. “There is a risk…”, I thought to myself — “that other women may come in and make this situation even worse!”
So I did what any warm-blooded non-psychopathic male would do in such moments of deep desperation and disgrace. I took a deep breath. I opened the cubicle door. And with a blank face — casually walked out of the bathroom without ever making eye contact with the two women. I just pretended they weren’t there.
It was unquestionably the longest, heaviest, most silent 10 steps I have ever taken in my life. Time suddenly moved slower, as if the universe wanted me to endure every bit of humiliation in every step. In the middle of it all, I saw through my periphery one of the women froze as she was applying her lipstick. Her hand slightly lowered, drawing a red streak on her chin as she stared at me walking by behind her through the mirror. I do not remember how the other woman reacted, but it was probably because she was more frozen than her shell-shocked friend.
I walked out of the bathroom and released my breath with incalculable relief. I took long, deep breaths as I walked quickly back to my friends. I started sweating. My heartbeat felt uncontrollably fast. I did not want to run. I was afraid that if I ran, people who may saw me walk out may start assuming that I had done something horrible intentionally — which I had not. In my mind, I wanted to act as neutral as possible, and to pretend that any of it had never happened. To assume ignorance over this horrible humiliation I have just put myself through.
I was panting and sweating as I arrived back to my friends. The plane was boarding, and I had just made it in time to say one last goodbye to my migrating friend. We did a quick hug and said our good graces. Before releasing our handshake, he said “You went away for a while bro, where have you been?” Upon looking at my face, his smile turned into a look of bewilderment and concern as he studied me up and down. “You’re sweating… you OK?”
“Yeah…” I huffed with bated breath. “Just took a wrong turn.”