There’s something
demeaning about queueing for the toilet.
Everybody that
passes knows why you’re there - and that what lies in store requires specific use of a cubicle.
It’s not much better
coming out to find a line of people waiting, or that awkward moment when your
eyes meet fleetingly with the previous occupant.
I remember once
doing a Buddy Holly show in a venue without any backstage running water (I say
“once”: this happened quite often). The only place I could style my hair was in
the front-of-house disabled toilet. I came out to find a man in a wheelchair
waiting to use the facilities. I apologized; he eyeballed me and tutted to himself.
He then had two
sit through two hours of me singing rock and roll music, presumably thinking,
“That’s the bastard who was hogging my toilet”.
I particularly like the ones on trains with slow-release automatic doors;
however urgently you need to use the facilities, you are stuck in limbo until
the door finally slides shut. Then, the only reassurance you have that it won’t
open mid-ablution is a little lit-up sign reading “Door Locked”.
How many times
has someone neglected to press the right button and subjected the other
passengers to a horrific slow-motion reveal? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Stop thinking about it.