W is for Women, M is for Men

I will admit, I have been in my share of men's restrooms.

Once, many years ago at a theater in NYC where there was a short intermission between acts and a long line for the ladies' room, one of the women, in desperation, finally commandeered the men's room, and a bunch of us followed her in. My father-in-law (who was standing in a nearby hallway), never quite got over it. To hear him talk about it, you would think we had desecrated holy ground. Till the day he died, he couldn't pass a restroom without shaking his head and muttering something under his breath about Visigoths, Huns or Vikings.

Then there was the time at Versailles when one of the bathroom attendants motioned for a whole group of us to come over and use the men's room. Unfortunately, I was the last one in, last one out, and by that time, the men had reclaimed their turf.

I figured I had two choices at that point. I could either stay in the stall (which had a floor to ceiling door and one very tiny window) until they closed down for the night, or I could try to squeeze out the window. Just as I was measuring the size of the window against my butt (and the two were not compatible), someone started pounding on the stall door and rattling the handle.

Since they both looked old enough and therefore fragile enough to actually be from the reign of Louis IV, I decided to go with option three. I put my head down, wrenched open the door and beelined it for the exit. I still have the impression of a whole row of guys frantically hugging the walls imprinted on my brain. Not good. (That was also pretty much the end of my liquid intake for the day. Dehydration was definitely preferable to repeating that experience!) I could almost hear my father-in-law rolling over.

Last Sunday night though, the tables were turned.

We had gone to dinner at one of the old, historic hotels downtown, and I had visited the ladies' room, which was down a corridor off the main hallway of the hotel. As I was freshening my lipstick at the mirrors in the first of the two rooms, the door came flying open, a man stuck his head in and yelled, "Teresa!"

He halted briefly upon seeing me. "You're not Teresa."

No, and I can't tell you right now how glad I am that I'm not. "Can I help you?"

"No thanks, mind if I look in there?" he gestured toward the second door, even as he breezed by me and started to push it open.

"Um, sure." Don't mind me, I'm only in the ladies' room.

"Teresa, are you in here?"

A muffled, "I'm putting my lipstick on," answered him.

"Well, I'm ready to leave. Now." Wow. Whatever happened to a five minute warning?

With that, he strode back out, nodded at me, and said, "Thanks."

Sure. No problem.

I never did see Teresa, but when I exited, there was no sign of the guy in the corridor or the hallway, and I thought I heard a soft male chuckle.