"what Took You So Long" (In The Restroom?) The Ans
Lounge By veejaytx Updated 12 Mar 2007 , 11:46pm by Housemouse
This is a little long, but very true!
WHY IT TAKES SO LONG IN THE LADIES ROOM
When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place.
Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall
is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall.
You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter, the wait has
been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern "seat covers" (invented by someone's Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty.
You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there
isn't - so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would
turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants,
and assume "The Stance."
In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles begin to shake.
You'd love to sit down, but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat
or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance."
To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying, "Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail.
Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work. The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet.
"Occupied!" you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing
altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of
course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late.
Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try.You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew,because, you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, "You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get."
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused
that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the
inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt
and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks
everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper
dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. At this point you give up.
You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're
exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
You can't figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors,
so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the
line of women, still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to
them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet
paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this."
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men's rest-room.
Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging
around your neck?"
This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public rest-rooms
(rest??? you've got to be kidding!!). It finally explains to the men what
really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked
questions about why women go to the rest-room in pairs. It's so the other
gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse and hand you Kleenex under the
door!
That is just hilarious Janice. My friends mum had a rather traumatic experience once. She had hurt her ankle so she was using a walking stick. She had gone to the rest room and the only cubicle available had a broken lock. Even though she wiped down the toilet seat she would never let her bare bottom touch it. So there she was, assuming 'the stance' tilting slightly so as not to put too much pressure on her injuted ankle and using her walking stick to hold the door close. In the middle of it all, someone who was also in a hurry pushed the door in with quite a lot of force and ....... the walking stick flew out of her hand and somehow flew over her head and landed in the toilet bowl. In the midst of all this, her mum is yelling 'There's someone in here.'
So now she has her pants around her ankle, walking stick in the toilet and a slightly wet bottom from the water splashing up. She did the only thing she could think of ..... she yelled for her daughter to come and save her!!!
My friend was so busy laughing that she almost peed in her pants even though she had just been.
Now her mum never goes into a cubicle that has a broken lock.
"Men can just zip in and zip out." This is so true, Mouse, in lots of different situations! LOL
Embarrassing moments to say the least, some of them nearing dangerous...what we go through as women is just not fair! I especially hate the handbag around the neck, but what are we gonna do?
My most embarrassing one: Walking out into a karaoke club with my skirt tucked into my panty hose AND trailing toilet paper under my shoes...way to go, Jan!
Janice, that actually happened??? Your skirt tucked in and toilet paper on your shoe??? Wish I saw that one!! Your first post is so true though! I HATE public restrooms!!!
The worst is seeing how many women don't wash their hands! 
I once was in the restroom with a FRIEND of mine to see that she didn't wash her hands!!! I was shocked and sooooo grossed out!!!
Yes, true story! The bad thing is nobody tells you, I didn't realize the problem until it got cool and "breezy" on my backside! Fortunately/unfortunately I was among friends. LOL
My mother tells a story of being in a stall once when the commode started running over, ruined her shoes and she almost slipped and fell with the water on the floor.
Restrooms are obviously not safe for us girls.
Amen on the hand washing! Janice
In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles begin to shake...
Oh my goodness, VEEJAY! When I read this sentence I burst outloud laughing.
I absolutely love this post and your writing is so funny. I always like to read your posts. You're just too much! 
Worst case scenario: My friend's mother (who is nuts) went into a public stall in a Wal-Mart once. "The Stance," as VJ put it, evidently was not good enough for this woman. Oh no. She wouldn't risk that. She would literally climb up onto the seat with her feet and squat. (According to my friend who told me this. Don't ask me how. Seems like it'd be physically impossible, but whatever.) Anyway, you guessed it--she slipped, and one foot fell in. Not only that, but she actually ended up FRACTURING the ankle in the process.
Not to mention the fact that she had to explain to the husband, daughter, and the soon-to-be-forming-audience-crowd that was gathering. And the emt's. And the docs...and the x-ray techs...and...
It's all sad but true, though. Sad but true.
-M-
Oh, my goodness, broken bones in the ladies restroom! How awful, and having to explain to all those people too!
I'm with you cakeladym, I'm not sure the stance on top of the commode is doable...I'm sure not going to try it!
I do have to clarify, I cannot claim credit for the original story, I received it in an email from a (male) friend who is one of the original "What took you so long" complainers. Thanks for the compliment though, I do enjoy posting here on CC, and reading everybody's stories.
I'll bet there are more good stories to come, I'm looking forward to hearing them. Janice
The worst for women is when you are out deer hunting with all your gear on and you gotta pee!
Up here in Wisconsin when you are hunting in the outdoors and you have a heavy orange coat on with heavy orange hunting pants, or better yet a heavy orange hutnting jumpsuit on, and ya gotta pee you gotta strip everything done and expose your tushy to the elements with NO TP to wipe anything! And then carefully having to position your gun somewhere so it doesn't fall and go off, or if you have to grab it to shoot something to protect yourself.
I have had to do this on numerous occasions, I learned to take TP or kleenex with me so that I could at least have something to wipe with. And it's no fun having to unzip your coat, pull down your orange overalls, then your pants (which are usually sweat pants), then your long underwear, and THEN your regular underwear.
They definetely don't make most of the hunting gear "women" accessible, ever notice how the zippers has 2 pullers so that you can pull from the top down or from the bottom up. 
Port-o-potties are the worst, because not only do you have to assume the stance, you have to plug your nose so you don't puke from the smell of it.
Men can just zip in and zip out.
port o potties make me sea sick! They always kinda sway around while you're in there...and that plus the smell makes me want to hurl!
Picture this:
Three inch heels, 5am, been out all night partying, driving home, need to pee. Badly. Home is a 15 min drive. Pull over on to a dark shoulder. Check to see that no one is going to be coming past in the next two minutes. Get out. Heels sink into wet grass. Pull up skirt. Double check that no one is coming. Pull down fish net stockings and control top knickers. Squat. Pee. Shake off excess. Stand up. Wrestle knickers and stockings up, and skirt down. Some how pull heels out of ground. Get back into car, and drive home praying that no one saw you and curse France's complete lack of 24 hour gas stations.
God i wish i could say I havent done that, but unfortenatly it has more than i can count. However I will praise France for one thing. For the most part the pubic washrooms in parks are self cleaning/sanitizing. They are a god send when you manage to get to one.
I love this thread - it is so down my street - I don't know why I imagined I was the only one who went through all sorts of manouevres to use public or any other 'iffy' toilets! I know the stance so well, though, since having fibroids, I have had to adopt an even more convoluted /strangulated stance in order to avoid my pee streaming out horizontally forwards rather than in a downwards direction.
Which is why I avoid public loos like the plague and use them, like most other women, as an absolutely last resort. I am paranoid about being caught out - that is, actually finding a toilet and then there being no loo paper. So, when I am heading into the unknown I carry an abundance of tissues, (a loo roll if I am carrying the right sort of bag), wet wipes (antiseptic), wetwipes (ordinary), a tube of alcohol gel hand stuff (in case no water/soap for washing) small perfume or air-freshener spray in case of even worse case scenarios such as entering the only cubicle to find it too whiffy for words; two life-saver strips of velcroed fabric for trouser scenario (see below), a large blunt ended butchers hook to hand over top of door or partition to use for coat/scarf/bag, etc and a very strong (but toneless) singing voice for 'no lock' situations (though i am thinking about carrying a small roll of industrial strength sticky tape for this scenario). Re the fabric strips with velcro, I realised that the only way to cope with water/pee/heaven knows what else on toilet floors, when wearing trousers was to make something that I could fix around my trousers and which would secure them closely to my legs and hold the hems up out of any mess, as alternative to trying to roll the hems up and then finding the trousers drop a bit anyway as you lower them down your legs! My DH thinks I'm eccentric.. I know I'm totally sane.
WOW, TWELFTH!
How BIG is your "bag?!?"
But yeah--those are the things we would conceivably ALL carry if we had "the bag," that is! LOL
-M-
It's not even fair. Men can just "turn around" to do their business. They don't even need to "hide" or whatever. 
I know it all sounds insane... but my bag is quite a modest size considering the junk I carry around with me - but I only take all the loo paraphernalia when I am travelling or going out on day trips where I cannot guarantee the standard of the facilities! I keep this in a separate black shoe bag in the bottom of my wardrobe so it is ready to grab and go!
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