Do you ever have those "Well ... crap." moments? These are different from the "Oh crap!" moments. "Oh crap!" is more of a surprised state of anger. Something negative and unexpected has happened and, more likely than not, you've been blindsided by it. The "Well ... crap." moment is defined by a realization of an inconvenience and no direct way to fix it. No one's bleeding. No one's dropped a large glass vase that's just shattered all over the floor. You've just realized that, man, you've been screwed over by the system. I had one of these "Well ... crap." moments just last night.
I was at one of my bookstore hangouts where I walked in to the women’s room. Scorning the first stall for its rag tag appearance I took up occupying the second stall. I even settled the little sanitary seat cover thing (got it in place on the first try) only to reach up into the toilet paper dispenser and discover there was no TP. Not even a backup roll that I could gouge out of the upper part of the dispenser with a jaws of life maneuver.
What was I gonna do? After all, I was already peeing. Well … crap.
Then it dawned on me. An epiphany. Necessity mother of invention here we go. I reached under the partition and back into the first stall. That stall I had shunned not two minutes prior. I flailed my hand around in the right vicinity … and – got it! – yanked down toilet paper from the full dispenser next door and into my stall.
I felt pretty damn smart. Smug even. I felt like I had cheated the system. You can bet I was smiling at my reflection as I washed my hands and left the restroom. Yep, smile still in place as I walked back out and into the store. Sign me up for MENSA because I got the TP!
It wasn’t too long before I decided maybe I should check myself and my big goof grin. Maybe I wasn’t that smart. Maybe I didn’t really cheat the system. But hey, at least I was able to wipe myself.
