April 18, 2005

• We both walk out of the stalls at the same time. And I, being the socially challenged idiot that I am, look over at her.  This allows me to walk in her direction and end up stealing the sink she was heading to.  “Sorry,” I say as she nods and walks over the other sink and washes her hands.  Moments later, she reaches over for a paper towel, coincidentally at the same exact time I do.  She totally steals the paper towel I had planned on using.  “Sorry,” she says as I take a different one and head over to the mirror.  She heads over to the mirror.  And, in all honestly, there are few things harder than trying to completely disregard the reflection of another person in such a small mirror.  Try as I might, there is just no way to fix my hair or see if there is anything unwanted in my teeth without totally breaking the whole unwritten law of girlhood that would be titled something along the lines of  “I Don’t Give Two Beans About What I Look Like…My Lips Are Just Glossy Because I Kiss Transparent Glue in My Free time…Swear”.  Not to mention, I would be covering up her reflection, which is definitely unacceptable.  Therefore, I just sort of wait by the mirror and pretend I’m getting something out of my bag.  What I’m really doing, though, is wishing she would leave so that I could see if the aspiring zit on my face finally decided to surface and conquer my nose.  Ten seconds...twenty seconds.  By thirty seconds, I know for a fact that she is waiting for me to leave, too.  At forty-five seconds, she lets go of her bag and looks into the mirror, clearly going for the gold. Her fingers are moving toward the humungous pimple on her forehead.  She wouldn’t, I think as the pimple is set between her two pointer fingers.  She wouldn’t dare.  But before I become entirely traumatized, I quickly seize my bag and head toward the door, defeated.  I look over at her once more, only to see a faint, triumphant smile etched into her face.  The door hits me on the way out.  “Bitch,” I think as I head back to class, “She stole my paper towel and my mirror time.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Why do girls travel in packs every time they take a trip to the bathroom?  To avoid situations like that.

  
  

   

  
  

  For girls, bathrooms have hardly ever been just about actually ‘going to the bathroom.’ Sometimes, they are going to the restroom.  Or the toilet.  Or the potty.  Or the powder room.  The worst though, by far, is the ‘lavatory’. Sounding way too much like ‘laboratory’, this word makes going to the bathroom sound like it involves a microscope and latex gloves. Try saying it one day.   “I’m taking a trip to the lavatory.” Your science teacher will adopt you.

  
  

   

  
  

  However, no matter which word is said, the overall term is so misused nowadays that sometimes I even get confused with its various meanings.

  
  

   

  
  

  “Can I go to the bathroom?” a girl in my class might ask the teacher.  And as that teacher lets her go, I can’t help want to ask that girl…what are you really doing?

  
  

   

  
  

  And although I do not possess the knowledge and logic that could determine an answer to such a question, I do, on the other hand, know the story of the evolution of the purpose of my bathroom visits.  If you are up for it and have a sick amount of time on your hands, read on.  If you have a social life, I would suggest exing out of this site right now.

  
  

   

  
  

  “I Just Have a Small Bladder” and Other Insidious Lies

  
  

   

  
  

  First Grade: There are three negative things to be said about the bathroom of my second year in elementary school.  For one, we were not allowed to ask our teacher if we could go.  “No,” she said to us on the first day of school, “Instead, you must wave one finger in the air if you have to tinkle.  And make a peace sign if you have to well...do number two.”  Because we were naïve, stupid, and unaware of the fact that this was both unhealthily cruel and completely unnecessary, my classmates and I accepted this rule and followed it accordingly.  However, no one ever did the peace sign.  It was a cardinal rule.  If you had to do number two, well then by golly you held up number one anyway.  Mainly for the preservation of your dignity.

  
  

   

  
  

  The other wrong of our girls’ bathroom in first grade was that it was nonexistent.  Nope.  Our class, boys and girls, shared one bathroom which was located in the classroom, with one toilet, one sink, and one massive poster of Monty the Mushroom that hung directly across from the toilet, smiling sinisterly at us as we tried to do our business and not make eye contact with it at the exact same time.  Honestly, what type of drugs was Mrs. Bergman on? It’s just a known fact. Nobody likes to look at happy mushrooms while they’re taking a shit. 

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

  Unless you like the idea of obtaining a persistent eye twitch.

  
  

   

  
  

  But out of all the issues that bathroom and everything related to that bathroom possessed, there was only one that truly managed to screw up the remainder of my school year and perception of restrooms as a whole: There was no lock.

  
  

   

  
  

  This fault meant practically nothing to me up until May of that year.  Our class had just came back from a long, tiresome Field Day and was now retiring on bean bag chairs, listening to Mrs. Bergman read from the extremely abridged version of ‘Great Expectations’.  Eventually, I raised my pointer finger and she allowed me to go.

  
  

   

  
  

  So there I was, sitting on the toilet, staring everywhere but at the fungus, and wondering when we would be getting our ice pops when…..ssqqueakk.  The door opened wide.  I screamed as the entire class turned around, only to find me in utter shock, pants at my ankles, on the toilet.  There was an eruption of laughter as I began to cry, the opener of the door firing useless apologies at me as he abruptly slammed the door.  Leaving me alone to sob and ponder how many wrongs one has to go through in life to be trapped in a small room with no pants on while in the presence of a giant mushroom. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Third Grade:  After the Pantsless Incident of 1996, bathrooms were used to come in contact with the dead.  The ghost of Bloody Mary, to be more specific.

  
  

   

  
  

  I think this all started after a friend of mine came into school one day with a nasty scratch on her neck.  “Howdja get that?” we asked her.  Frowning grimly, she sat us down, telling us “It was her.  I said her name three times in the dark and then all of the sudden this freaky dead lady came out from my mirror and scratched me.  I almost died.  Honestly...that’s how it happened.”

  
  

   

  
  

  Minutes later, all five of my friends and I were crammed in the handicapped bathroom stall, lights turned off, eyes glued perplexedly to the small mirror that hung above the sink.  Bloody Mary.  Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Actually, by the second Bloody Mary we were halfway down the hallway screaming our legging-clad butts off. Sure, none of us had actually seen any rotting dead lady pop out of the mirror, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t say we did.

  
  

   

  
  

  Thanks to us, our entire grade transformed into a ghost buster cult.  People began to ‘hear voices in gym class’ and noticed that the mystery meat at lunch looked somewhat ‘possessed’.  Paper cuts were symbols of an upcoming death and no one ever played tetherball after they saw the ball swinging on its own.  However, the best part was that mirrors were just about completely abandoned. Which basically resulted in a 45% higher probability of leaving the bathroom stall with a large strip of toilet paper inconspicuously tucked into your pants. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “No, you aren’t a raving psychopath.” Our concerned parents would say as they drove along, now double-taking as they passed the local insane asylum and wondering what size we would be in straight jackets.

  
  

   

  
  

  It was not until one of our daily meetings in the handicapped bathroom stall that we finally uncovered the truth. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Bloody Mary Bloody Mary Bloody Mary.  We had mastered the art of saying her name three times without wetting our pants.  But, as usual, nothing happened. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “But that cut…” we had said to help us believe that there was in fact some lady that would willingly jump out from a quarter-inch thick layer of glass and a penetrate one of her jagged nails into our necks.

  
  

   

  
  

  After a brief pause, our friend with the healed wound on her neck spoke, blushing. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “Oh that?” She turned her back to us and quickly made her way towards the door.  And just before she ran away, she muttered quietly. 

  
  

   

  
  

  “My cat did that.  He doesn’t like it when I feed him Meow Mix.”

  
  

   

  
  

  
  

  Seventh Grade:  Considering the fact that I spent the beginning of that year at a new school, and then I moved to New Jersey at around Christmastime and started another one, bathroom stalls were exceedingly helpful: they were where I ate my lunch. 
  

  
  

  Now:  SALLY IS A WHORE SLUT    JRS <3’s AEL<3<3

  
  

  nice girl    PEENISS!!                                ^BITCH

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  I know what you’re thinking.  But you’re wrong. The above text is not a written-out spell performed by a cult of schizophrenic Satan worshippers.  It’s actually an accurate imitation of the graffiti that is carved and written on the insides of doors in the girls’ bathrooms.  Some look at this and cry.  Especially girls named Sally.  Others, namely me, look at this and smile.  Thanking god we are not named Sally and that we have the privilege of seeing the greater, classier side of Short Hills girls expressed through contemporary works of art.

  
  

   

  
  

  I’m only being slightly sarcastic. 

  
  

   

  
  

  However, because of a series of carefully mastered drawings located on the first bathroom stall in the art wing, I now know the penis size of about five people.  Including girls, if that is even possible.

  
  

   

  
  

  Really, guys.  Thanks.  If it weren’t for your profane graffiti, I would be so much more unaware of obscene amount of transsexuals that inhabit our school. 

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  Bathrooms, as you may have realized, are not just toilets with sinks and tile.  If walls could talk, the walls of every restroom that exists would immediately scream for a highly respected psychologist to soothe their aching heads and clear their minds of every pimple popping situation they had ever witnessed. 

  
  

   

  
  

  However, when it comes to witnessing a pimple popping, I’d say everyone within earshot of the incident can be considered a tormented victim.

  • 9:22 pm
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