The Terrible Toilet

This incident brings me no great joy to recount. In fact, the following are all things that this story doesn't contain: dignity, sense of propriety, information given in a socially-acceptable quantity, street smarts, or proof of my being an intelligent and/or logical person. As you may surmise by the title, this story is about a toilet. A water closet. A bathroom. Whatever you call it, I think we can all agree on what goes down in them. As such, if you're not into reading vivid descriptions of these places, you will probably want to leave this story now.

But I must go on.

Let me begin by first telling you about metro station washrooms in Rome. I will do this by recounting a story about Sister, since I will embarrass myself plenty in the actual story. Sister and I had taken a day trip from Rome to the nearby mountain town of Tivoli. When we returned in the evening, we planned to relieve ourselves in the free, albeit dependably disgusting, train washrooms. After crossing our legs for an hour as we waited for the train, we were duly horrified to discover that it had no washrooms. Not even the albeit disgusting ones. We had no choice but to hold it. My own plight was eased by the fact that I had not had much of the coffee we'd packed. Unfortunately, Sister's discomfort was inversely proportionate to my ease for this very reason; When coffee is split 70:30, it makes perfect mathematical sense that it will manifest later in the same 70:30 split. That's just physics. I went to school. Anyway, by the time the hour-long ride was over, Sister was desperate as I've never seen her. We raced through Rome's Tibertina train station, pulling hard corners and sharp hairpin turns as we followed the 'servesi' signs that ushered us along the path to freedom. Sister was speed-walking with such ferocity that I was struggling to keep up. As I fell behind her, I was struck by how very like our dear mother she looked as she pedaled along, trying to simultaneously walk and keep her legs crossed. I giggled breathlessly at this and jogged to catch up, so as to share my amusement. Sister heard my giggle and stopped me before I could share. “No,” she panted, but she giggled a little, too. “You can't make me laugh. I. Can. Not.” She walked away even faster and more wonkily, but my own gasps of laughter chased her down the underground tunnels. She was nearly incapacitated right then and there. As her stride faltered and she bent double for a moment, I began to consider the horrible possibility of my 26-year-old sister wetting herself at a metro in the Eternal City. It made me laugh, but it was a horrified laugh this time. Luckily for Sister, she managed to direct us to the washroom. It was an automated system, so she put the 0.50 euro coin in and punched the 'open' button. The door hissed open, like the spaceship doors on Star Wars do.

Hissssssss... psssshhhhtttt...

She was in. I cannot tell you her experience; I can only give you my own testimony. I used the same stall, both because the wallet was on that side of the space-door and because I thought that, if it was too terrible, Sister would surely warn me. She didn't. After she was out, the space door sealed behind her. This is an instance in which I am eternally grateful that I didn't try to cheat the system and sneak in behind her. The whole room is apparently self-cleaning, which means that it jets water all around it, I think. That's certainly what it looked like, anyway, when I undertook re-entry (for the bargain of 0.50 euro, of course). It would be a more exciting feature if it did more than make the room extremely... moist. There was no turning back when I got in there, but I wish I had, full bladder or not. The room was a muggy, reeking mess, the toilet paper dispenser was empty, and the bowl of the toilet was nearly right full, making it an absolute non-option to sit down. I really considered going on the floor. I mean, it was a self-cleaning toilet, so what could the harm be? Luckily for whatever desperate person who might next require that toilet, i managed to find another way. In an amazing feat of ingenuity that I won't describe in detail, I managed to hit the toilet bowl while making zero contact with a single surface of the space-toilet, save for my feet being on the floor. I was pretty proud of myself, but didn't wait around to celebrate, in case the space-toilet decided to self-clean. I thought that would be the last time we used one of those toilets, but now I must continue to my actual story, since this was just a precursor.

Sister and I were going to be flying out of Rome on Sunday. This story takes place on a Saturday directly before, as we blow off our last day in Rome by sitting in a square near Termina Station (where airport shuttles abound), doing some drawing and waiting to go to Saturday evening Mass before spending a miserable night in the airport. It came as no surprise when our bladders fill and we need to take action. Leaving me with the burdensome packs, Sister went first. She will be the scout, I figure. I was drawing contentedly, so it seemed like just a few minutes passed and she was back. She informed me that it was another space-toilet, but that it was not so disgusting. And it even had toilet paper. With those reports to give me comfort and Sister's speedy return to assure me of its easy-to-find location, I sped off, with 0.50 euro in my pocket, as confident as could be. When I got to Termina, I realized that I made a terrible error in not asking for specific directions. On the one hand, I tend to forget directions roughly three seconds after they are given. On the other hand, it couldn't have hurt. Instead of going straight down to the metro, I entered the big, bustling train station. There, I followed various 'servesi' signs that led me to two different washrooms. Both looked perfectly charming, but cost a full 1 euro. I had but 0.50 euro to my name, which was an even bigger error than not asking for directions. I spent about fifteen minutes zigging and zagging my way around and finally found a door with a plaque, a tiny one, that read 'WC', which means water closet. I pulled the door and it didn't give right away; a version of me that had an emptier bladder might have left it there. Not this version of me. This one was full. I pulled harder and the door gave way. I rushed in, but the second obstacle in the labyrinth presented itself: a man. The sight of the youngish man laying on the floor, apparently asleep, was the first thing to hit me. The next was the wall of fumes that suggested he had done in a pack of cigarettes in the small room. I balked for a moment. Again, a version of me that didn't have to pee quite so terribly as I did would have turned back. I did not.

The man was outside the door of the farther WC, so I simply stepped forward to the space-toilet door nearest to myself, fed the machine my entire 0.50 euro fortune bestowed upon me by a Sister too stingy to provide me with a decent WC, and waited for the space-door to slide back and admit me.

Hissssssss... psssshhhhtttt...

I was in.

This WC was in roughly the same sad condition that the first space-toilet had been. The bowl was not brimming this time, but it was still not an environment that I wanted to com in contact with. Using my handy-dandy contactless space-toilet maneuver, I succeeded in a contact-free transaction. Unfortunately, and this is where the real, hella unfortunate bit happens, I reached back to my right to nab me a little toilet paper.

I want to stress that there was a GREEN BUTTON RIGHT NEXT TO THE TOILET PAPER SLOT!! Was I wrong to ASSUME (pardon my pun) that the GREEN BUTTON RIGHT NEXT TO THE TOILET PAPER SLOT!! would not, in fact, be a toilet paper dispensing button???

I pressed it.

Pause... I watch the toilet paper slot not budge.

Hissssssss... psssshhhhtttt...

That was not the sort of a sound a toilet paper dispenser makes. Not even a space-toilet-paper-dispenser. That was more like the sound of a space-toilet door opening.

Indeed it was. My head seemed to turn in slow motiion from the unbudging TP dispenser to the space-toilet door that was opening with, for me, all the dread as if it were to admit Darth Vader himself. I cannot tell you how quickly I pulled everything back into, more or less, its proper place.

Sometimes, when I see calf-roping at the rodeo, I wonder at how quickly the competitors can jump off their horses, bolt to the calf, and tie three of its legs together with such speed and dexterity.

Now I know. It's adrenaline. With the door wide-arse open, I wondered if I should just wait for it to shut so I could end my session with more ceremony. Then I remembered that they were self-cleaning, and I'd had quite enough mortification for the day, without a toilet-water shower. Eager not to get locked in, I took one final look back at that GREEN BUTTON RIGHT NEXT TO THE TOILET PAPER SLOT!!, just to glare at it, then left.

There are two things that could have made my day a whole lot worse: if someone had been waiting outside the WC when the doors opened on me (such as the sleeping guy), or if I had waited around and gotten locked in for a cleaning cycle. Sometimes contemplating how much worse it could have been is the only thing that makes the situation better.

You know how I sometimes imagine the worst-case scenarios happening to me? This was pretty much it, so now I'm putting my anxiety down to foresight.