Only women will truly relate to the following, but it’s a hoot for all.

My mother was a fanatic about public toilets – as a little girl she’d bring me in the stall and teach me how to lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat. Finally, she would instruct me, “Never, never sit on a public toilet seat,” and then she would demonstrate the ‘stance’ which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat.

That was a long time ago - even now in my more mature years - the stance is very difficult to maintain when your bladder is especially full. When you have to go to a public restroom, you find a line of women that makes you think there’s a half-price sale on Nelly’s underwear in there. So you wait, you check the feet under the stall doors, and finally a stall door opens and you dash in. You get in there to find the door won’t latch. You hang your purse on the door hook, you pull down your pants, and you assume the stance. Relief. You reach for the toilet paper…the paper dispenser is empty. You remember the tiny tissue in your purse and you crumble it in the puffiest way possible.

Someone pushed open your stall door because your latch doesn't work. Your purse whams you on the head and you scream, “Busy” as you reach for the door, dropping your Kleenex on the floor and falling directly backward on the toilet seat. You get up quickly but it’s too late. Your bare bottom has come in contact with all the germs and life forms on the bare seat because you hadn’t laid down toilet paper, not that there was any even if you had time to. And your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew because her bare bottom never touched a toilet seat because, “Frankly, you don’t know what kind of disease you could get.”

By this time the automatic sensor on the back of the stall has become so confused that it flushes and then suddenly sucks everything down with such force that you grab the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to China. At this point, you are exhausted. You try to wipe with the Chicklet wrapper you found in your pocket and you slink out to the sinks.

You can’t figure out how to operate the sinks with the automatic sensors so you wipe your hands on the paper towels and walk past the line of waiting women. One kind soul at the end of the line points out the Kleenex that is stuck to your shoe and it looks as long as the Mississippi River. You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand, and say warmly, “Here, you might need this.”

This is dedicated to women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public toilet and it finally explains to men why it takes us so long.