No. 7 Waiting on the Goldilocks Stall

Orlando, Florida

Tis the season everyone! Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, and a Happy New Year!

Wishing you safe travels as you journey to be with family and friends. Thank you for joining me. It means a lot to me that you’re here.

In my news this month:

Two photographs have been accepted for publication!

Look for them in the Spring edition of the literary magazine Glassworks. I’ll post the link once it’s available.

I’ve won my first photography award!

Winter Grove, Suffield, Connecticut has placed third, second, or first. The committee won’t say until the night of the show in January. I’ll let you know.

In the mean time, you can see or purchase my fine art photographs by going to my website or by clicking the Photography tab in the Substack header above.

Waiting on the Goldilocks Stall

If you’re from a cold region—looking at you New England—December ‘tis also the season to go someplace warmer. I’m lucky enough to live close to a sleepy regional airport with insane deals to Florida. My family goes several times per year when the airfare drops below $90 round trip. Thank you Frontier Airlines!

On a recent trip home from Florida, I attempted to enter a women’s restroom in the Orlando airport. Just past the threshold, a restless line of ten people stretched all the way to the sinks. Surprise, surprise. Nothing annoys me like a bathroom line that obstructs my bladder’s headlong flight to release. Especially when I had waited until the plane began boarding.

I settled in as patiently as I could, trying to find a way to be grateful in the moment instead of annoyed. I was in the line because I had the privilege of flight, of vacation with my family, of indoor plumbing. I thought of Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician—as one does—whose screw pump was in no small part responsible for the plumbing I was about to use. His invention of the odometer would count the miles of my journey home. Of course, his most famous discovery was Pi, the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. And I thought, hang on, How can it be over two thousand years later and we still haven’t figured out the proper ratio of bathroom stalls to women in the ladies’ room?

The line was NOT moving. The woman at the head of the line was switching foot to foot, a tell-tale sign of an imminently bursting bladder. What I couldn’t understand was why she wasn’t using any of the three empty stalls among the otherwise occupied wall of ten.

“There are three empty,” I said to her, gesturing in case she had somehow failed to note the open doors.

Her face contorted in disgust. “One of them isn’t flushed and there’s water on the floor in the other two. You can go ahead if…”

That’s all she needed to say.

I stepped out of line, not a little disgusted myself by the Goldilocks-privileged attitude of all the people ahead of me. Are we so spoiled? This stall is too messy, this one is too puddly. I’ll wait for the one that’s just right. Unfortunately, that stall wouldn’t be available for ten more minutes at that rate and I had a plane to catch.

I’ve been the mother of newborns AND teenagers. There’s nothing that toilet could throw at me that I haven’t seen before. Yeah, you might argue, but at least you were related to the makers of those bathroom messes, in some way responsible for having created the mess to begin with. This was a stranger’s, or several strangers’, mess. It’s a totally different and more disgusting affair.

To that I have one answer: SOAP.

I am a public restroom veteran, nay, warrior. I didn’t hesitate. As I stalked away from those neophytes, those I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom pretenders, I taunted the stall before me: Do your worst.

I swung the door back and inspected the carnage.

• Giant wad of toilet paper in the bowl? Check.

• Splatters of bodily fluids on the seat and walls? Check.

• Toilet paper on the floor? Check.

• Overflowing sanitary disposal bin? Check.

• Back-of-door hook ripped off so there’s nowhere to hang up your purse? Check.

• Broken bolt so anyone could walk in at any time? Check.

• Anatomically impossible suggestions written in marker on the back of the door? Check.

Is that all you’ve got? I sneered.

I was undaunted. Let’s show them how it’s done—metaphorically speaking. I didn’t actually want anyone to watch.

Emergency stall protocol is best worked in the following order:

1. Hold the flush button down with your foot. A lot of unflushed toilets are the result of the previous user not holding the button long enough. Lo and behold! The entire wad sucked down the drain and I was left with, if not a pristine white bowl, at least an empty one. Success.

I spun around to shut the stall door. All eyes were on me, and several of the women looked as though they felt they’d been cheated. If they didn’t know how to seize an open stall opportunity, then I didn’t feel one whit of line-jumping guilt.

2. Remove sweater from around your waist and tie around your neck instead—like you’re about to go yachting on Cape Cod.

3. Place your telephone or pocketbook on top of the toilet paper dispenser if it is flat. If it is not flat, tuck items under your chin or in an armpit because the rounded dispenser will act as a chute into the toilet. Sub-optimal.

4. Place your head against the door to keep it closed.

5. Hover over the seat and hold pants away from the toilet to avoid splash back or inadvertent contact with porcelain germ factory.

6. Emerge victorious and try to keep self-righteous expression off your face as you saunter past the line to the sinks to wash away contractable diseases with SOAP.

7. Sprint for the plane because you were an idiot for waiting so long.

I can only hope that the other women in the Orlando airport line learned a valuable lesson that day. For line sufferers everywhere an unused toilet is a valuable commodity. Let’s help the ratio out. Archimedes can’t do everything.

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Pro Tip: When you disembark the airplane, bladder sloshing because you didn’t want to go on the plane, never use the bathroom that’s nearest the gate. Unless you were seated at the front of the plane and got off it first, every person ahead of you will already be in line. Instead, walk another hundred feet to the next restroom with no gush of arriving passengers. Chances are very high that you’ll be able to walk right in. You’re welcome.

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