About Going, a flash series, part 1

Apparently I’ve been going potty all wrong—at least that’s what the little ads popping up in my feeds tell me.

How do they know!? It’s a bit disconcerting.

The little girl I used to childwatch in Eugene, OR had a toilet a bit like a throne. I thought the little steps were to assist little ones getting onto the stoiol—no, it was about better positioning.

Maybe this is TMI=too much information, but, butt, it has recently created some flash memories. About going.

On our first overseas trip, the Grand Tour as I like to think about it, when as newbies we boarded a plane and went to Europe, I found the world SO MUCH BIGGER—and different from North America. It was mind blowing that the Vietnamese food in Paris tasted different from the Siam Noodle I was used to in Chicago—same with McDonalds. I was assuming that things I once thought chiseled in granite were not quite. I had little imagination for exploring outside the lines. Yet, needs dictated that I pivot. So I did.

The most glaring example was going. I thought we all did it the same was and assumed if I went into a bathroom I’d see what I was used to seeing: a porcelain stool with a seat.

Let me also insert here another thing I learned early on on our trip—NEVER pass up a restroom. I couldn’t assume that there would be one on board a bus or at a museum or a Starbuck’s at every corner or no lines. If it was there and handy—go!

So at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris I assumed that because it was English and sold English books that there would be a nice bookseller bathroom—forgetting the lineage of the store, that it has served customers for eons (apparently the one I was at though was not the same location frequented by The Lost Generation). I was given verbally a set of directions and found me way to an out of the way second floor closet where when I opened the door there was a drain in the floor.

Oh.

There maybe should have been some kind of trigger warning. But, since I was there and leaving my mark on most of Paris thanks to my incessant tea drinking, I took advantage. It wasn’t pretty.

We left a bit emptier money and bladder-wise, with our bags weighed down with bargains and souvenirs.