Magic, Madness And Sadness

Occupied

I always feel like such a sucker whenever I find myself having to fish for coins in my pockets to hand to the toilet-guard lady, but when nature calls, even my pride is no match. Sometimes I wonder if anyone officially puts these people here. Is it possible that they just rock up to a public restroom with a few rolls of toilet paper and start raking in the cash from suckers who just can’t hold it? Perhaps a question for another day, as of this moment, my only concern is clenching my sphincter until such a time that I can relieve myself.

As luck would have it, my bowel movement has to wait for hopefully a few more minutes as I walk in to find a long queue of some frustrated men hurling insults at the only working stall. Well, the insults are probably meant for the occupant and not so much the stall itself, a fact that certainly doesn’t warrant an explanation. A father stands in front of me with what I assume is his son in hand. The child keeps tugging at his arm and telling him he needs to go. The father snaps! After yelling at the child for quite some time, he drags him to the front of the line and starts hammering at the door with his free hand.

“If you don’t come out here right now, I’m gonna get in there and drag you on your ass. My son is about to shit himself because of you." He yells.

No matter how loud his knocks or how graphic his threats of violence, not a peep comes out of that stall. In a fit of rage, the man lets go of his son and slowly backs away from the door until he hits a wall. Now I’m getting excited, clearly he’s about to charge at the door, probably to open it with brute force. I’ve only ever seen this in movies so as you can imagine, this is a big moment for me. I don’t know if this makes me a bad person, but part of me wishes he would crash into the door and fall to the ground, maybe even break a few teeth in the process – fingers crossed. I mean, come on. I know I can’t be the only one thinking this, right?

Unfortunately my dreams will have to remain just that for. An overall clad man walks into the restroom and immediately orders the man to stop. None of us know he is, but the general consensus seems to point to him being the caretaker of this dump. See what I did there? The commotion must have prompted him to check what was going on.

“All of you, stop what you’re doing.” He commands. Something about his burly build demands we listen, even if just for a second. Every single one of us stops and turns their gaze toward him, even the father about to bulldoze the last working stall. However, another wave of insults soon erupts and ends the momentary silence, this time directed at both the occupant and maintenance man. In a bid to get to the bottom of all the commotion, he begins to push his way to the front of the line, forcing most of us to lean against the walls to make way. I don’t know about the others, but the man I am now is certainly not the same guy I was before touching these walls. Once at the front, he begins to fiddle with what is without a doubt the bulkiest set of keys I’ve ever seen. This man can probably unlock the entire country – I think to myself. Silence is restored once more as we all eagerly watch him flip through the keys one at a time. Every time he slides a key aside, a little piece of each one of us dies.

Eventually he finds the right key, hooray! We wait anxiously, ready to hurl our collective wealth of insults accumulated since boyhood at whoever emerges from the stall. Much to our dismay, no one steps out. We look to the maintenance man for answers as he stands dumbfounded in front of the now open stall. I don’t know about anyone else, but his gaping mouth has me rather concerned. I mean, no one would risk ingesting this bacteria infested air unless something more dire than death itself was forcing him otherwise. Curious about what the caretaker had seen, those at the front slowly walk toward him to sneak a peek. Each one that looks seems more shocked than the last. Personally, I find it hard to fathom what could be so amazing about a toilet stall, perhaps I too should sneak a glance.