Revenge, it turns out, has antennae

At my work we share one ladies room with all the other businesses on our floor. The ladies room is unremarkable--your basic two-stalls and sink--and functional, except for the totally screwy door layout. The entry door opens into the room, and the stall doors open outward, thus, so if the stall doors are left open (or swing open on their own, which they do if they haven't been shut properly) you have to solve an infuriating spatial reasoning puzzle in order to gain access to the room and/or the sink. Everyone makes sure the stall doors are secured during and after use of the bathroom to avoid that nuisance. All of us except the Crazy Bathroom Lady, henceforth CBL, who has an agenda.

She always takes possession of that first stall, purposely leaves the stall door wide open so no one can enter, and if you try sings some variation of "Okay! I use bathroom now!" in the accent and tone of a stern Ukrainian grandmother pointedly suggesting you mind your manners. And no matter how many times I (and the other dozen or so women on our floor) have mentioned to her that it's a facility designed to accommodate two people--hence the TWO stalls--and is the only toilet on the whole floor, and that no one is issued keys to the bathrooms on the other floors so, you know, it's not like we have options when she commandeers the place, not to mention it's the only access to water (for coffee making, washing cups, etc.) for the tenants who don't have sinks, she pays no attention. You have to go through the same dance with her each time. You say something like, "Could you please close your door? I can't get in." She answers, "Yes, *I* use bathroom.You wait, okay, now lock the door." while pushing the stall door wide open to keep you out. Many of us do just that if our situation isn't too grave, we wait; mostly because the dance is tiresome, and you can't help but think there must be something behind her supra-crazitude; maybe the poor dear has serious claustrophobia; maybe there's no such thing as public toilets in the Ukraine. I sincerely doubt that's true but I've never been there, so what do I know. Anyway, sometimes the crazy old broad gets her way because you don't have the energy to deal with her.

However one occasionally rushes to the loo under more dire circumstances and is unable to wait, making it necessary to force your way in. We have each developed our own preferred methods. The model/actors across the hall are partial to the swift door kick, as evidenced by the dings left in the wood by their fashionable pointy-toed shoes. The ladies of advertising tend to use a hip/buttock battering ram maneuver. I'm a bit gentler, I push on the door with my hands until I create enough space for me to wedge my body inside, and then slither between the doors to the wall until I'm able to move onward to the empty, unused stall beyond. The presence of another human being generates the same level of indignation each time, like no one has ever dared challenge her commands, "I TELL YOU, SOME-one is USE-ing the BATH-room!" Her reprovals continue the whole time your in the other stall, even long after you've washed your hands and disappeared. I hear (since CBL is the subject of many cigarette break/elevator conversations) that I am not alone in being completely baffled by her behavior. It goes way beyond a simple WTF?. Her persistence in the face of fifteen years of failure--how long she's worked next door and has been jousting this particular windmill--would be inspiring if it wasn't so absolutely bananas.

Three cups of tea, a crowded train ride, someone's bag pushed into my belly the whole way, and the short walk in the freezing cold sent me running to the ladies room first thing this morning, in urgent need. Sadly CBL was in the whizzouse characteristically bent on making life miserable. She jammed the stall door against the entry door before I even put my key into the lock. I had to do the pushing/slithering maneuver to get inside, not easy with a bladder three times its normal size. CBL chirped out the usual "Hello! *I* use the bathroom!" from behind the door. I continued slithering, she prattled on about locking the door, and that I should wait, blah, blah.; except this time--I discovered when fully in the room--she wasn't even using the toilet. She was standing at the sink...putting on make-up. I was furious! How many times, I wondered, had I and others stood in the hall, hopping from foot to foot, waiting, magnanimously, so that she may have her precious privacy, and she was using her solitude to apply lipstick?! I leapt into the first stall afraid if I were to stand near her a second longer I would unleash a monster several years in the making all up in her freshly powdered nose--AND pee my pants. As soon as I shut the door she barked, "No, no, no, NO! You wait. *I* was about to use. *I* use. You wait!"

THE! FUCKING! NERVE! OF! THIS! WOMAN! I didn't know if she meant she was about to use the bathroom and I should leave, or that I should vacate 'her' stall; she wouldn't find either request unreasonable. My answer came seconds later via a tap on the stall's door. "No, no! You wait! I was going to use. You wait!" It was the latter, she wanted her stall. Didn't matter, she wasn't going to get her wish. But then I looked down and spied a four inch water bug, thus, had crawled up the side of the john and taken residence on the toilet seat. It took every bit of strength I had, but I didn't make a sound. Nope. Instead I silently exited her treasured stall and left the bathroom completely.

It was a full three minutes of eye watering pain before I was finally able to get back into the bathroom and relieve myself. But it was worth it to hear the screams. To witness the terror, the skirt-at-the-ankles fleeing.

Posted by Antigeist at January 26, 2006 11:41 AM