Friday, December 16, 2011

See you later/The cursed animation of inanimate objects.

So I really didn’t sleep Wednesday night, unless you count that hour nap in the midst of finishing my paper. But it was fun, for I skyped various and sundry people, and the subject of my essay was mucho interesante.
Since we have not got mod cons, aka a printer, at my house, I went to LCF to print my paper and the few tickets necessary to go Europe-exploring. There was almost no one in the lab, which is UNHEARD OF. It means the printer isn’t freaking out with 5095769097 jobs. And the paper won’t run out. So, blah blah blah, printing, nearly asleep, when I look out the window at the rare London winter sun over the rooftops of Oxford Circus, and realize I won’t be here again, in this exact spot, for a long time. Depressing…….happy sleepy mood gone……

I do my stuff and leave. I go to the toilet. Finish that business. Go to unlock the stall door.

FOILED.
it refuses to unlock.
I try again. Again. Again. Again.
No. not happening. I can see the problem: the teeth on the underside of the bolt have become disentangled from the knob that turns it, and it’s just flopping about. I can’t seem to slide it out by other measures either. I’m alone, thankfully.

No worries, say I, I’ll just slide out under the door. Grimy, yes, but not deadly. And I have assignments to turn in, buses to catch, fickle bathroom locks shall not deter me.

Or will they. This stall is not a standard one, with the accompanying standard foot-and-a-half between bottom edge and floor.

OH NO. this is a custom built bugger. There is no more than eight inches between the floor and the bottom of the door. I’m little.

But not that little, yo.

I look up. The ceiling is probably nine feet high. The door is about seven-and-a-half.

Nothing for it. Slide backpack under door, get rid of encumberments like scarf and Ipod.

“Dear God. If anybody has to go to the bathroom on this floor ,please remind them that they have to buy their witchy step-mother a gift, and entangle them in searching the web for that gift. Just keep them out of here.”

This is why I climbed all those trees in my childhood. This is where scootching up the hallway walls to the ceiling like a little monkey was a good idea. Because that’s what I look like, feet braced on the stall walls, wishing I’d been doing my pushups. My legs are plenty toned, but my arms are about the consistency of chicken skin.


Anyway, I get on top of the door. Deeply, truly, devoutly thankful I’m a lady, because this would hurt like the dickens if I were a dude, astride the narrow end of a slab of wood.

OOF.
Done. Success. Hooray.
Not fifteen seconds later, someone comes in.
I suppress my mirth and dissolve in giggles as I run down the stairs and out into the sharp air and noise of Oxford Street.
A fitting incident for a last day.