You may not know this about me because if you did that would be weird due to its deeply personal nature, but I always have odd things happen in the bathroom. Wait, that sounded bad. Not like bowel movement related, ok maybe sometimes… The point is sometimes I can’t seem to go to the bathroom like a normal person. Example number one: my right thumb was throbbing as I wrote this because of a bathroom-related incident.
My boyfriend, Nick, and I were deep in the middle of our travels across Europe and we were at Barcelona’s airport heading to Nice, France. We were in a small terminal during Easter weekend, so things were quiet. Too quiet.
When we went through security we were the only ones in line. As I was waved through the metal detector a ding went off and before I walked away the security guard told me I had been selected for a random security check. He pointed towards a mat with two painted feet on it, so I planted mine on top and put my arms out to the side like a mini plane (what a synonym).
When he didn’t approach to pat me down I said over my shoulder, “Why aren’t you touching me?” I regretted the word choice immediately. He grunted and tried to push my arms down put I popped them back up like the brother in a Christmas Story when he was in his snowsuit (just go watch it). While traveling for months out of a carry-on I tended to wear many layers (mystery is sexy).
I looked back and found Nick chugging the rest of the water from the water bottle we always forget to empty before security (liquid bad) as another security guard egged him on (dance, monkey, dance). Eventually, the guard sent me to one of his coworkers to swipe my right pocket and sandwich for bomb residue (naturally) and I left on my merry way.
Once Nick had successfully downed almost a liter of water we found the bathroom soon after. As I was moving down the stairs pretending to be “going downstairs” in a fake-funny way (comedy gold) my sneakers that lost traction years ago made me slip on the squeaky-clean tiles (go janitorial team) and I basically jammed my thumb into the railing (real sexy like though).
I looked around to see who other than Nick shared in this moment of shame and there he was, the security guard, at the bottom of the stairs. He actually shook his head. People do that! People unironically shake their head at you! Oh, and he did it more than once. The bastard.
In my attempt to escape his judgment I turned into the bathroom closest to me. You guessed it: it was the men’s bathroom. Typical. Practically a cliché. Except do most clichés end with a security guard having to escort you out of the bathroom because he had to go get you? He shook his head again of course.
With the language barrier, I think I saluted him (as you do) and walked towards the women’s bathroom to figure out how to break off toilet roll with a jammed thumb.