Staring Fear In The Face!

All my life I have had an incredible fear, to the point of having nightmares when I was younger, about being locked in a cubicle in a public washroom and not being able to get out.  haha  Wierd, I know, but then most such fears are kind of odd.

BUT, today I faced that fear full in the face and WON!

After our church potluck I headed into the washroom, locked myself in the cubicle to do my business and then tried to unlatch the cubicle door...it wiggled and jiggled up and down but the latch refused to move to the side to release the bar from the locking mechanism.  First it was kind of funny...as the minutes ticked by while I continued to wiggle, jiggle, wrestle, push, pull and bash about to no avail, the humour began to dissolve.

So, I did what any red blooded, middle aged, now TERRIFIED woman would do in my situation: I pounded on the cubicle door and on the wall beside me as hard as I could and screamed for help at the top of my lungs.  Of course no one heard me.  The sound proofing between the washroom and the main hall in our church basement must have been installed by the FBI or the CIA or some such organization because not one single soul sitting only a few feet from the washroom door heard me utter a sound!!  After nearly 15 minutes in there I was starting to freak out.  I started thinking about how rarely that washroom is actually used after the service. I started thinking about how, even though I walked into the washroom in full view of my husband, he has no concept of the passing of time and eventually wouldn't even remember seeing me go in there.

I pounded and hollered for another few minutes before realizing help was not on the way. The Cavalry was not going to come riding to my rescue. Sigh....what to do but to take a closer look at the size of the gap between the bottom of the cubicle door and the floor....the filthy, dusty, dead bug as it happened covered floor immediately outside my cubicle....and decide if I could lay on my back and squeeze through that gap.

Eyeballing it from above was not telling me much, so, THANK YOU JESUS MY HIP HAS HEALED SO MUCH, I squished myself down between the toilet bowl and the door in a semi-squatting position and took a better look. I decided if I was really careful and was able to force myself to lie as flat as possible against the floor, I could JUST make it underneath.  I pushed my cane out, along with my black suit jacket, which I rolled inside out to prevent it from picking up all the dirt I could see waving at me from the linoleum, hoped like heck there were no bodily fluids on the floor at the base of the toilet, sat with my back against the bowl and  stuck my legs out under the door.  As soon as my hips cleared the bottom of the door there was enough space to lay the top half of me down and I was able to squirm out of there.  Whew.....when my nose touched the bottom of the door and then cleared it without pulling off any skin I knew I would be okay!

I was still laying sprawled on the floor wondering the best way to haul myself upright again when the main door opened and a parishioner came in. She took one look at me laying there, assumed I had fallen down from a standing position, let a mighty shriek out of her and grabbed for her cell phone to call an ambulance.  It took me a few seconds to convince her I had not fallen and no ambulance would be necessary.  hahahaha  The look on her face was priceless and I wish I had a picture of that as much as she now wishes she had a picture of her minister's wife flat out on the floor of a public bathroom.  O how we laughed once I figured out how to sit up and grasp the edge of the sink to raise myself back to a standing position.  

As she jiggled the lock mechanism from the outside of the cubicle door it popped open.  O how I wish she had arrived about 30 seconds before she actually did. I could have avoided the whole laying on the filthy dirty floor in my good clothes thing. At least I had the presence of mind to use the end of my cane to push the dead insects out of the way before beginning my slide to freedom!

My husband didn't seem the least bit surprised when he heard what happened.  He knows me so well and the stupid things that frequently happen to me.  This is the woman who tripped over her own two feet and broke a hip only recently!

We hurried home so I had time to change my clothes before heading off to choir practise where I did NOT get locked in the bathroom!!!  

One fear down...a few more to go I suppose...the one where I am holding a large tarantula while sweat pours down my face and trickles down my  back can wait for a few more years!!