My Whereabouts

Some of you have speculated that the trip to the gym might have killed me. Others suggested that my falling in love would make me so happy that I would no longer feel the need for cynical rantings. There is probably some truth to both, but never fear, yesterday I found myself in a blogworthy situation which re-awakened my desire to share my fabulous life with you, my dear readers. Not just with Prince Charming.

So, I've been commuting to Philadelphia for the past couple of days. Commuting so that I could squeeze in a romantic dinner on Wednesday evening. But I digress. Our Philadelphia office is a lot nicer than where I usually sit in New York. However, there is one caveat: The restroom requires one to not only have a badge but also a key, as it lies outside of the boundaries of the office proper.

Early yesterday afternoon, I ventured over into the ladies room. All went well, until I attempted to exit the stall, at which point I went to turn the lock only to find that it was jammed. I laughed to myself and jiggled the lock again, and again, and thought about how funny it would be to tell people about how I thought that I had been trapped in a low-walled ladies room stall.

And then, five minutes later and after a few more jiggles, some of them violent, it became apparent that I actually was trapped in the stall. And nobody was in sight.

I looked up - no possibility of my scaling the wall. And then I looked down to the floor. And paused for at least another five minutes and ten jiggles.

[Before I proceed with the story, let me describe what I was wearing: Formal white dress shirt with French cuffs, beautiful pink and gray silk scarf from Cacharel, gray trousers, and red patent leather shoes with little tassels]

And then I laid down on the cold, gray floor of the semi-public restroom with my beautiful white dress shirt and slid myself out from under the stall.

And then I collected myself and walked back in to the office as though nothing had happened, leaving behind a jammed stall door that could not even be opened with force from the outside. I vowed not to tell my dinner date that I had been crawling around on ladies room floors, for fear that he would not touch me.

You must understand that after that point I was reluctant to visit the ladies room and vowed to steer clear of the offending stall. Fortunately the damn thing was jammed shut, making future visits less risky.

That is why I was so surprised when later on in the afternoon the door jammed shut on the neighboring stall...and I was forced to once again wriggle around on the cold, dirty stone.

I use the handicapped stall now.