Lessons from public restrooms, #5 (Take 2)

*Uh...okay, dear readers. Sorry if you're seeing this twice but the only place lesson #5 is showing up right now is in Google Reader. I can't pull it up on my blog or my draft list. So I'm reposting it for any non-Google reader users.*

I hope you feel edified.

Okay, edified might be the wrong word here. Let's say that after these five lessons, I hope you feel...

Well, like you still want to come back here and hang around. I'm just trying to help, after all.

Lesson #5
Sometimes you have to change your baby's diaper bum in a public restroom. You might think that it seems like a good idea to hold your baby's bum up to the hand dryer and get it extra dry, because, hey--it's right there and it could be kind of funny. Don't do it. If you hold your baby's bum up to the hand dryer and turn it on, it might startle your baby. Enough that he'll wet his pants. Except he's not wearing pants. Or even a diaper. So he'll just pee on you. Then you'll have to use the hand dryer to air out your pee shirt. And p.s., the dryer doesn't help with that, either.

Lesson #4
The more urgent the need is, the harder the seat cover will be to wrestle from the dispenser. I think it has something to do with an anxiety sensor that some Super Nerd invented and installed with the automatic flushers just for giggles. Your anixiety is high, a little switch goes off in the dispenser and suddenly trying to get one of those things out starts to look like alligator wrestling. I mean, it's just a theory, but I think it's right.

Lesson #3
Any time you're in a store, but most especially when you're in Target, pay attention to the most annoying teenage girls in the store with you. Memorize their faces, study the details, because you will have a stomachache that causes you to rush for the restroom. This stomachache will cause you to suffer from loud sound effects that abuse the bathroom acoustics, and the quieter you try to be, the louder you will get. And when you finally do walk out from the stall, the only other people in the restroom will be those two girls, silent now, staring at you in fascination, memorizing your face, studying your details. And this will happen more than once. In fact, any time you are in a public place with obnoxious teenage girls this will happen, and yes, you are totally justified in suspecting you may have an allergy to them.

Lesson #2
No matter how tempting the acoustics are in a tiled public restroom, and no matter how convinced you are that you are all alone, this is NOT the time or place to bust out your Mariah Carey impersonation. People will hear you and they will wait for you to come out and then they will applaud. But it won't be the kind of applause that makes you feel good.So don't do it. Just saying.

Lesson #1
The people whose numbers are written on the walls of the stall? Usually don't want to be called no matter how bored you are.