"Lies that are not lies in the first floor bathroom"

Dear friends,

Whenever I use a particular divinity school bathroom, I get accused of something I did not do.

I tend to avoid this 4-stalled bathroom because it is small and thus hard for me pivot smoothly when my 50-pound backpack is extending 5 feet from my body. Also, the doors are swinging, saloon-style doors, and tall people's heads peek out over the top when they are standing. I do not like to see the top of someone's head while she is buttoning her pants.

However, I end up there sometimes. And then someone inevitably questions me of performing an act of which I am innocent. The first time this happened, I was washing my hands when I heard the loudest throwing-up noises I have ever heard in my life. It was clear that these noises were not coming from within the same room where I was, but from the individual bathroom directly adjacent to where I stood. I stood wide-eyed and horrified at first. I mean, these noises were incredible. I can't even imagine what was going on. But then I began to laugh a little. This, my friends, is why I am not called to be a pastor. I probably should have launched into "omg-someone-needs-my-help-and-I-am-going-to-find-him-or-her-and-administer-care" mode. Instead, I grinned widely and thought about how I must tell my friend who thinks watching people throw up is very funny.

However, while I stood there, being a huge jerk and drying my hands, someone else had apparently launched to "I-will-care-for-the-sick-because-I-am-kind" mode. She burst into the bathroom where I was and gasped: "ARE YOU OKAY?" (The sounds had stopped by this point). I said, "Oh, uhhh, that wasn't me. I am fine." She looked at me skeptically. She knew that I was lying because I was embarrassed, and she was going to prove it. "But I heard someone getting sick." "Oh yes," I said, "I heard that as well. I think it was someone next door." Her facial expression did not change. "Please stop accusing me of raucous vomiting," I thought. At this point, she apparently decided that I was not going to confess to my crime, and she departed, perhaps still on a search for the person in need, and I made a quick escape.

However, Having only had this one incident, I returned to this bathroom several weeks later. There was quite a commotion going on by the sinks while I was yet in the stall. Unnecessarily loud words were being exchanged by ladies with those ghastly backpacks that look like over sized purses. Then one of the loud ladies called out: "Oh no! I knocked over someone's coffee! Whoever you are, I'm sorry! I bumped it with my unnecessarily large purse!" I thought to myself, "Did I put my coffee mug on the counter by the sinks? No. No, I did not." Then, the girl in the stall next to me said, rather untheatrically, "oh no [giggle]." I then stepped out of the stall and made my way to the sinks. The woman at fault looked at me and said: "Oh gosh, I'm sorry for spilling your coffee!" Wanting to reassure her and provide a rationale for why I was not helping her mop up the spilled coffee, I said: "Oh don't worry, it wasn't my coffee." I continued to unresponsively wash my hands. As she kept mopping frantically with a large wad of nonabsorbent paper towels, she asked: "Can I pay you for the coffee?" "Hmm," I thought, "I thought I had thrown her off the trail when I told her that the coffee was not mine. Apparently not." "Oh, that was not my coffee," I said, a bit more forcefully. She did not seem convinced, so I fled the scene. Now, I have been walking around since the incident yesterday, feeling badly that I did not reassure her that it was no big deal and not to worry about it, I'd just go get a refill. But I did not respond in this appropriate way because it was not my situation to respond to. And yet I feel badly.

How silly.

I'm never going into that bathroom again.

Best,

Sara