2004

From SgWiki

2004 and 2005 readers emails and stories from all over:

[edit] train and toilets from a lady POV

From yesteday’s email: My mother was a fanatic about public bathrooms. When I was a little girl, she’d take me into the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the seat.

Then, she’d carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the seat.

Finally, she’d instruct, “Never, NEVER sit on a public toilet seat. Then she’d demonstrate “The Stance,” which consisted of balancing over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of your flesh make contact with the toilet seat.

By this time, I’d have wet down my leg and we’d have to go home to change my clothes.

That was a long time ago. Even now, in my more “mature years, “The Stance” is excruciatingly difficult to maintain, especially when one’s bladder is full.

When you have to “go” in a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women that makes you think there’s a half-price sale on Nelly’s underwear in there.

So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, who are also crossing their legs and smiling politely.

You get closer and check for feet under the stall doors. Every one is occupied.

Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter.

The dispenser for the new fangled “seat covers” (invented by someone’s Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty.

You would hang your purse on the door hook if there were one – but there isn’t – so you carefully but quickly hang it around your neck (mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume “The Stance.” Ahhhh relief. More relief.

But then your thighs begin to shake. You’d love to sit down but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold “The Stance” as your thighs experience a quake that would register an eight on the Richter scale.

To take your mind off of your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser.

In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Honey, if you would have tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!”

Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday – the one that’s still in your purse That would have to do.

You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail. Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn’t work.

The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet.

“Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle, and sliding down, directly onto the insidious toilet seat.

You bolt up quickly; knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper – not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try.

You know that your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew, because you’re certain that her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, “You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get.”

By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a fountain that suddenly sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged off to China.

At that point, you give up-because you are soaked by the splashing water. You’re exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket, and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

You can’t figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and, at this point, no longer able to smile politely.

One kind soul at the very end of the line points out that you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long as the Mississippi River! (Where was it when you NEEDED it??)

You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly, “Here, you just might need this.”

As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has since entered, used and exited the men’s restroom and read a copy of War and Peace while waiting for you.

Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?”

This is dedicated to women everywhere who have ever had to deal with a public restroom (rest??? you’ve got to be kidding!!).

It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked question about why women go to the restroom in pairs.

It’s so the other woman can hold the door and hand you Kleenex under the door

[edit] Harry Porter a movie critic or supporter/daughter comments:

(sound like a daughter's protests to a father who grambles about movies...)

Harry Potter- from a Christian point of view CPOV?

The storyline streams from witchcraft, poor moral system, etc. Everything that is wrong?

Perhaps so. Yet nonetheless, what difference is it compared to playing/watching say Dungeons and Dragons or Resident Evil? Or how about things like gambling and toto (buying 4-D)?

All of which could be considered wrong too. Many Christians willingly embrace card-playing (poker, bridge) all over the world, yet isn’t it encouraging gambling of a sorts? Many gamers have played Doom, Dungeons or Dragons or Resident Evil…games with a “bad” storyline. Yet, I don’t see all these being banned/condemned.

So, what is this hype about Harry Potter? Why ban watching it? What make such a fuss about it and cause conflict? I would say it is because of its popularity- hit where it’s hardest, so to speak.

Part of it I can understand- warnings of its subtle influence on our minds. The seemingly “ok” morals of the story. E.g. doing well is ok (part where Harry Potter always does something wrong but goes off Scott free. even rewarded at times)

And the subtle witchcraft messages/theme- names of characters have witchcraft origin. Even the author herself is rather open about her “religion”. It is building in us this acceptance of witchcraft that is wrong. So that is why I can understand and accept the warnings of the Christians all over the world.

However, labeling it as a heretic movie, banning the watching of it, condemning both author, movie and anything related to it- I think that’s very narrow. Its only adding fuel to the fire. People are just going to be even more interested in watching the movie with all the hype being created about it. In fact, if the marketing people for the movie knew their business, they might have even started all this “Harry potter talk” just to spice things up a little. A little negative publicity might serve for the better.

Things all started with some good discerning Christians wanting the world to know the subtlety of Harry Potter- that like many other things in this world, it is Satan at his most strategic at dragging us down.

Yet it has led to some others taking things to extremes, making things go out of hand. I guess it also shows how we should not (despite our personal beliefs), force others to our point of view. So, should we watch it? If anything, society has made my decision for me- yes. That is because I want to watch it and say that “of course the movie was enjoyable and exciting” but “I disagree with what was done, that those times Harry did this and that…THAT was SO wrong”. I would not want to stand apart and condemn it without watching it. Imagine what kind of testimony that would be to my non-Christian friends around me. At least when I watch it, they would know that I KNEW what I was talking about when I said that Harry Potter is not something that is good. Along with playing poker cards and all that- they know why I play them. I don’t just condemn playing cards just because they “encourage gambling”. I continue to play but I don’t gamble because I want to show them that its not the cards I’m against, but it’s the act of gambling that I’m against. That goes for Harry Potter. It’s not the movie I’m against- It’s the witchcraft and poor moral teaching behind it.