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I was first in line to use a public unisex bathroom. A friend of mine was ahead of me, currently in using the restroom. When he exited and I entered the room, I saw that the seat was up.
"That's fine," I thought, "It's a public room, besides he's a single guy that is not trained into the habit of seat-downing it. Sure, that may make it difficult to learn that instinct later, but I am not his mom nor his girlfriend so bygones be bygones, right?"
I was only there to blow my nose anyway, I didn't even need to use the toilet, so why did it matter if the seat was up? I didn't matter. I needed to attend to my runny nose machine, which I had aquired from the cold season Christmas I had earlier this week. Enter restroom, blow nose, wash hands; these were my goals. It was going to be a quick in and out. Like jack rabbiting, which is a reference to that one Sex and The City episode where one of the ladies had a dude jack rabbit do her.
Then I realized I had to put the seat down. Regardless of whether I was going to use the toilet or not, I had to put that seat down. If I left the seat up, the lady behind me in line would assume that I used it that way. Then she would conclude that I had a penis. Then she would mentally say to herself "Ah! That explains the broad shoulders." Then, I would be famous in her brain as "that one woman she saw at the improv theater that had a penis" then she would tell the story to her friends about how she used the restroom behind me and because of her television sharpened CSI detective skills she figured out that I was packing a dong. Her friends would laugh and then share the story on their own with the preface "I have a friend who" then the woman penis bathroom legend would begin. Then one day, someone would tell the story to me and I wouldn't be able to stop from blurting out "that's me! I am the one with the penis!"
Not that people assuming I had a penis (or awesome stand-up peeing ability) would be a bad thing. I am sure I am supposed to assume I would have gotten a lot more things more easier if folks thought I was packing a dong. That's how it works, right? Penis equals pass? Maybe? I don't know. I don't have one. But that's not what the woman behind me was about to assume.
I had to get that seat down. Which meant that a new rip needed to in the universe: toilet friendship. I did not grow up with a familairity to public toilets. In my whole first six grades of school, I never once used the public restroom. By junior high, I had perfected the seat squat much to the pride of my well-hardened thighs. In high school and college, I developed more normal restroom habits, including the unashamed use of the seat cover or the homemade seat cover made out of toilet paper. But last night called for me to touch, with my hands, the seat of the toilet and lower it to sitting position. And I wasn't going to even use it!
My non-penis bearing pride made me do it. I didn't want someone I didn't know to think I had a penis (or stand-up pee ability). I'm not a confident enough person to let that happen. I can't even guarantee she would have thought that. Because I can't control other people's thoughts! I can, however, control what other people see in the restroom after me (hear that, non-flushers?).
I was going to lower this seat. In the seconds I have spent so far in this bathroom, I still had no way around touching this seat to put it in place. I looked at the floor and saw my winter booted feet. And there is was. Solution-time! I would use my boots to touch the seat. Of course, I was not going to stand bare-footed in the public unisex bathroom. I was going to stand one-legged in the public unisex-bathroom while the other leg I raised to lower the seat with my foot. I couldn't just kick the seat down, I didn't want to tip off the people in the line outside to the chaos that was potentially about to happen in this bathroom. So using foot tension, balancing and all matters of physics, I pressed my booted foot to the side (a non-sitting area) of the rim and executed a controlled thigh lower, keeping my lower leg tense to ease the lid down.
Tap. Seat lowering achieved. Also, groin workout invented. Now, a stranger won't think anything of me. Nonfame unlocked. Wait, that's not exciting. Infamy is exciting, nonfame is just...just...nothing.
Huh. Now no one will buy my book. *
*That I haven't written yet.
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