«The Blog of Wistar Watts Murray

Tonight I had my fiction class at UVA. It was great, as usual, but I was drinking a forty of Hurricane during workshop and consequently had to take frequent trips to the restroom. It was actually a twenty of Diet Doctor Pepper. I was alone in the restroom when I heard a very loud pair of shoes barge in and loiter in front of my stall door, where I was actively urinating. The hinges on the door allowed for a lot of peeping space, and I nervously ducked down because the intruder was obviously checking me out through the cracks. Then the person went into the stall next to mine. I saw white tennis shoes and socks facing the toilet under the division. I heard a male voice murmuring to the bowl, but no liquid or flush, and then suddenly the person stomped out without washing his hands. The whole incident took less than half a minute. I tried to finish up quickly so I could catch the culprit, but DDP creates a long stream. A female classmate entered the bathroom as I was exiting the stall, feeling very violated.

“Did you see someone leaving?” I said. “I think a man was just in here.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I think it was___(another classmate). He was in here last week too.”

I furiously washed my hands and returned to the classroom, where __’s complacent white tennis shoes confirmed my suspicions. Not wanting to embarrass the guy, but also really wanting to embarrass him, I said, “Hey __. Were you just in the women’s bathroom?”

“Oh, was I?” he said, unapologetically. “Yeah maybe. I get them mixed up all the time.” Evidently the little skirt on the bathroom door says nothing to this guy except “Lift me up.”