I’d
been doing some writing in a café. I needed a wee had been reluctant to pack up
all my stuff, so waited until I was leaving.
I opened the toilet door to be greeted with the pungent smell of someone else's
urine - perhaps not that unusual for a public facility, but this was the stench
of concentrated bladder juice: the nasal equivalent of drinking some Robinson's
Barley Water straight from the bottle.
It was immediately obvious why the scent was so
overpowering. On the floor was a huge puddle of liquid. I didn't need to act
like a TV detective and dip my finger and have a taste to confirm my
suspicions: it was definitely kidney-cola. I don’t know how much winky-lager a
human bladder holds, but I assume it was pretty much exactly this much. It’s a lot more than you’d imagine.
How someone had managed to get to the bathroom and
yet then fail to get any of their home-brewed lemonade into the actual lavatory
was a bit of a mystery. Hey, we all have those moments where things go a bit
awry and I am sure many men's aim can be a bit hit and miss (especially as you get older I am afraid to
forewarn you). But if you are standing in a puddle of your own micturated
fluids, like a foul smelling Dr Foster, then surely you'd stop peeing or at
least do all you could to redirect the flow. Unless the water pressure was so
high you ended up like a fireman clinging on to an out of control hose. Even if
the accident was down to infirmity it might have been polite to inform a member
of staff of your mishap, though whoever had done this had pissed and run, and
by the looks of it maybe slipped up a bit as they did so.
I wanted to walk away too, but I had been waiting for
some time and this was a matter of some urgency. Even Moses couldn’t part this
Sea of Wee, but I realised I could circumnavigate this Pissific Ocean and do my
business from the side of the bowl.
Seconds into me shaking hands with the President,
someone tried the toilet door. The surprise might have made a lesser man jolt
and add to the capacity of Lake Urea-rior, but unlike the previous occupant of
this stall I was shooting at least 95% of my frothy Fairy Liquid directly into
the bowl.
But fresh horror! I realised that whoever was waiting outside
would enter as I departed, see the widdle-splattered crime scene and not
unreasonably assume I was the pee-perpetrator. Even if I blurted out that it
was like that when I arrived, would they believe that I would have still chosen
to conduct my business here?
What if they recognised me from my newspaper column
and then wrote into the Metro letters page and told the world what kind of a
man I was? As you know they’ll print
anything there, no matter how far-fetched.
Would I have to clean up another man’s business to
avoid being branded a Floor-Fosters- Fetishist?
I elected to walk out with my head down and say
nothing. I realised that as long as the next man got in and locked the door he
would find himself in the exact same quandary. I didn’t pass the water, but I
passed the buck. And presumably he did
the same. That bathroom will never be cleaned, because the finger of suspicion
points as inefficiently as the python syphon of the man responsible.
I was disappointed that the Love and Sex with Robots
conference in Malaysia has been cancelled, because organisers were worried that
“delegates” might try to have sex with the robots. I am very interested in the
whole subject of sex robots and had been hoping to attend so I could try to
have sex with the robots. Thwarted! So it’s back to the Doctor Who exhibition
in Cardiff as usual.
