Hallowed ground

Anyone fortunate enough to be present on the third floor of my office building yesterday would have been treated to a sight of inordinate hilarity. At 11:35 in the morning, a woman walked out of the office at the far end of the hallway, walked up to the men's room on that floor and walked inside. I am pretty sure she was a woman because she looked like a woman, was dressed like a woman, walked like a woman, giggled like a woman as she hurried back out in a distraught way and blushed like a woman, acknowledging her error. Also, only a woman would be liable to misinterpret the sign clearly proclaiming "Men's Toilet" on the door. By this, I do not mean to label women as a species capable of acts of such foolishness. All I meant is that a woman would be more likely to suspend her belief in the credibility of the printed word, instead, opting to verify it's accuracy through personal experience.

Her unprovoked incursion into the men's room irritated me. For ages, women have preserved the sanctity of their ablution center by keeping it out of bounds for men, only periodically providing tantalizing glimpses of what secrets lie behind those closed doors, when they enter or leave that hallowed ground. And for centuries, men have been taught through rigorous training at their mother's knee, high school peer pressure and movies featuring Johnny Lever that the only fate worse than death for a man is to be caught inside a ladies room. In this context, a woman, on the other hand, blatantly entering the domain of male urino-defecation seemed to me outrageous. I resolved to correct this wrong, wreak vengeance on behalf of all malekind, so to speak. I would grasp this opportunity to peek into the ladies room as my revenge in order to satisfy my curiousity as to what artifacts of mythology lay inside.

Firm in my resolve, I advanced in my quest and planted myself in front of the ladies room door. Placing a palm on the door, I pushed it forward. No squeaks of righteous indignation assaulted my presence. I entered the room. It was small, but comfortable. It contained a sofa, a coffee table, magazines lying on the coffee table, a karaoke machine with huge speakers and a bar. It looked more like an airport lounge than a place meant for discharging human waste. But hold on, this seemed to be just the outer waiting room, There was another door. I walked over to it, curious to see what lay beyond. Strains of music filtered through. Gathering courage, I pushed it forward and plunged inside.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright light. Strange as it may seem, the sun was shining in this bizarre land. It was a land of meadows, of bright red flowers and gurgling streams of urine. Birds were twittering and squirrels were running around chasing cheerful wads of multicolored toilet paper that were flying around in the cool fragrant breeze. A little white pony ran out of nowhere and began chewing on a low-hanging soap-on-a-rope dangling from a porcelain tree that stood next to the washbasin made of pure gold.

A number of stalls were scattered about with dulcet music emanating from them. The toilet seats were made of leather, covered in fur and a loving masculine voice would periodically compliment the occupant of the stall on the progress she was making in her endeavours.

All this was a bit too much for me to assimilate. I spun around, grabbed the door and was out of there before you could say feverish imagination. "So that's why women spend so much time in there", I thought to myself. Suddenly it all made sense to me. And then I felt the triumphant glow of being the only man in the world who would ever possess that bit of knowledge.