You know that I’ve said Karma wipes its patootie with me, but my luck has taken an extreme turn as of late.  Every single thing in my life that was unpleasant has become all unicorns and rainbows and waterfalls of liquid chocolate.  I’d begun to think Karma had forgotten about me.  Just to keep me in my place, however, it reared it’s malicious little head today and decided to screw with me in the strangest fashion.  It didn’t do it in the usual way.  Oh no.  Apparently Karma had the following monologue with itself:

  I woke up this morning rather groggy from a poor night’s sleep.  I simply couldn’t get comfortable.  I was either freezing, fighting the kitty for space, or startled awake by loud noises outside.  At 12:30am I awoke with my kitty rubbing his ass on my face, vying for a choice spot on my pillow.  At 1:15am the woman in the apartment upstairs began to vacuum.  It sounded like she was mowing the carpet.  At 2:30am I discovered that I’d kicked all the blankets off and was convinced that I had frostbitten toes.  At 4:00am I actually fell out of bed.

  Anywho, I got out of bed at 6:30am feeling like I’d surely die of exhaustion and made my way to the bathroom to begin my morning rituals.  I washed my hair and began the painstaking process of blowdrying… during which I discovered a hole in the dryer screen when my hair was sucked up into it and began to burn on the motor.  Lovely smell, burning locks.  Even lovelier is attempting to free tresses from the inner workings of a blow-dryer.  When that mess was accomplished I bent to put the dryer away and whacked my forehead on the counter.  I was forced to head to work with the lingering smell of burnt hair about me and a purple lump just above my right eye.  I smelled homeless and looked like a battered woman.  *sigh*

  I was feeling rather parched as I trudged to my desk so I made a pit-stop at the vending machines for a bottle of water.  The cold liquid hit the spot and before long I’d chugged the whole bottle.  Moments after finished I was struck by the immediate desire to pee.  I should’ve known better.  Generally, peeing isn’t something we think much about;  we get the urge and we do it.  Game over, no big deal.  The thing is, I hate the bathrooms at work.  They’re eerie.  They remind me of scenes in “One Hour Photo”… stark whiteness gleaming in macabre fashion under fluorescent lights while soft music lilts from somewhere overhead.  I’m sure my company means for the potty room to be soothing, but I just find it creepy.   As if the strange brightness and elevator music aren’t bad enough, every damn thing in that restroom is automatic and/or confusing. 

  I hesitated a moment at the door steeling myself for the Twilight Zone experience of relieving myself, then pushed through the barrier with resignation.  I let myself into the first stall (statistically the most sanitary, by the way) and slid the bottom lock into place.  Each stall has two locks:  a slider and a turner.  I use the slider every time… and then forget I’ve used that one and freak out when I can’t get back out after turning and re-turning the other one.  *shrug*  Anyway, I lined the potty, took a seat, and did my deed.  Just as I was wiping the toilet flushed, spraying my butt with bowl water.  Now I don’t care HOW statistically clean the first stall is in any given bathroom;  I don’t want toilet water on my ass.  *sigh*  I began to scream obscenities at it.  I heard a giggle from the next stall and then a voice.

  “That’s why I stay fat.  The damn sensor knows good and well when I’M gone.”  I snickered.

  I armed myself with a heaping pile of T.P. and proceeded to wipe down my heiney with disgust.  I tossed the used handful of paper into the toilet and proceeded to screw around with the lock (not the one I’d used to lock myself in, by the way).  I finally figured it out, released myself from my watery enclosure, and sighed.  Oddly, the toilet refused to flush once I’d left the stall and I glowered at it, standing in the doorway and willing it to work in the way it was designed.  Alas, it did not and I was forced to search for the little default flush-button.  Down went the T.P. finally.  As if to irk me, it flushed AGAIN of its own accord as I was walking toward the bank of sinks across the room.  Bastard.

  I held my hand under the soap dispenser and waited for it to squirt a bit of foam into my palm.  I rubbed my hands together and shoved them under the faucet, waiting for it to acknowledge my existence and allow a stream of water.  This went without incident.  Then I moved to the towel dispenser and waved my hand before its sensor.  Out slid a towel.  And then another.  And another.  It wouldn’t stop, and before long a pile of paper towels paid homage to my feet.  I briefly thought that I should do something but couldn’t determine what that something was.  So I hauled butt out of there, glad to escape with my life.

  I was on a roll with the bad bathroom occurrences already.  Why stop?  Hours later I had to tinkle again and was quite annoyed.  Visiting those restrooms once a day is more than enough for me.  Having to do it any more than that is an atrocity.  But, we gotta do what we gotta do, and the alternative was wetting my pants.  I accepted my fate and headed to the nearest restroom. 

  Before I continue I must explain the layout of my “favourite” bathroom.  I generally hit one specific bathroom simply because one of the lights is out and I prefer the semi-dark to the blazing white.  This bathroom is down a hall and has an entrance from both the right AND left sides of the hallway.  I always turn right.  Always.  I’ve programmed myself that way, I suppose. 

  This time, however, I wasn’t near my “favourite” potty location, so I headed to the closest hall with a restroom.  On auto-pilot, I was.  I came to the restroom doors, one on each side of the hall, and took the traditional right turn.  I immediately noticed something didn’t look right, brushed that observation aside, and turned the corner… only to be confronted by men.  A bunch of them.  And all peeing. 

  “Ooops.  Wrong door,”  one of them said, almost nonchalantly.  I hardly heard him as I was fleeing.

  I tore out the door and sought refuge across the hall in the REAL ladies’ room, feeling about as retarded as possible.  I thought I would die of embarrassment.  I leaned my elbows on the edge of the closest sink and silently berated myself for being a twit.  Berating finished I stood and was immediately assaulted by the automatic hand sanitizer.  It noticed me there and let fly with a great stream of disinfectant.  The stream struck me just as I was straightening and managed to spray me dead on my left boob.  I cursed, then regarded the aftermath in the mirror.  At that point I decided not to tempt the automatic toilet and figured I’d just hold my pee until I exploded.  I left the bathroom. 

  As I walked back to my desk I came upon a strange girl who smiled pityingly at me.  She kinda paused, then smiled with honest warmth. 

  “You know,”  she began.  I stopped to listen to her.  “That used to happen to me all the time right after I had my baby.”

  I couldn’t determine which I wanted more;  to kill her or myself.

  I’ve avoided bathrooms as much as possible for the remainder of today.