My Happy Place (Not That, You Pervert)

The Batcave.

Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.

Gilligan’s island.

These are all places of sanctuary for men who desperately needed them. All guys have such places. My place of refuge is far more simple—the bathroom. The smaller the better and preferably with dim lighting. The bathroom is a bastion of higher-level thinking, a testosterone-doused Shangri-La where my mind enters a Zen like state of ingenuity. When I need to work out a rewrite for my novels—it’s off to the throne. If I need a blog idea and I’m more stumped than Tom Delay in a Political Ethics class—I head for the head. And it’s not that I even use the toilet or the sink. Sometimes I’ll just sit there on the icy, ceramic tile floor, cold and naked. Well, that’s only half true, and I’m not telling which half.

The point is that the bathroom is my bankey, the one thing in life, other than gin and doctor’s offices, that seems to calm my nerves. So, at my new post as a 7th grade teacher, I immediately found the nearest teacher’s restroom. The room is near perfect. Dim lighting, a mirror that contains no sexual organs or phone numbers scored into it, and an always clean, porcelain toilet. The only drawback is the toilet paper. As usual for public sector jobs, the material is somewhere between sandpaper and mutated porcupine pricklies dipped in radioactive hot sauce. To be far less eloquent, the paper corrodes the anus. (And oddly enough, even though I’ve done a Brokeback Mountain post, that is the first anus reference on this blog).

But I overlooked the toilet paper’s shitty nature (I couldn’t resist) and found peace in my new bathroom away from home. Until the day I forgot to lock the deadbolt on the door. See, the door handle lock is broken, and since Bush has yet to force his “No Bathroom Door Handle Left Behind Law” through Congress (and I’m glad he hasn’t because then we’d have to give all toilets A’s, even if they couldn’t flush), the only way to secure the door is with the deadbolt.

Yesterday I strolled into the bathroom, dropped trow and made for a tinkle. I left the stall door wide open, confident that the bolt was latched.

It was not.

I can’t truly describe the look of horror on the elderly sixth grade teacher’s face as she trundled into the restroom, expecting it to be vacant. If forced to give an account, I’d say her facial expression was close to Carrie’s on prom night, only not as pleased.

I stammered ineptly through some barely coherent explanation. Something like, “Whoops—hey—guess I didn’t lock it...uhm...geez. Sorry?”

I don’t know if she forgave me or not. By the time my Rain Man impersonation reached the apology, there was nothing left of her but a cartoon silhouette and the scent of deep regret.

I do know this: I felt more violated than Kobe Bryant’s nanny.

Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne never had to put up with this.