Bathroom Dark: A Special Kind of Dark

I'm going to start this off by stating that generally, even if something is wrong with the bathroom on the floor where I work, it's easy enough to go one floor up or down and find an open set of stalls.  

This one time, however...

Nope.

Break is not long enough for the adventure I went on for my quest to pee. 

It started innocently enough, looking with grim expression at the "Shit's Closed" sign on my floor, shrugging, and moving on. 

I tried the second floor.

Closed.

I tried the fifth floor.

Closed.

I just wanted to pee.

So bad.

My legs were getting tired from using the stairs, but work certainly has elevators.
No problem, right?


Well, I had STARTED by going from one sure-fire floor to another, which meant skipping a bunch. 
By that point, I'd narrowed it down to just having to move one floor up or down.

The thing about going down or up only one floor when there are other people in the elevator to notice is that I will ALWAYS assume I'm being judged as an asshole.

This is because I do this to other people, unless I can make up a good reason for them. 

Because I'm a bad person.

So, I felt pretty judged as I did this myself…

I swear to you, every bathroom on every floor was either being cleaned at that moment or just flat out broken somehow.

Every.

Single.

One.

BUT THEN I found one!

I tried at least three more floors until I came to one that wasn't closed, so I was super excited and relieved (in more ways than one).

Imagine my surprise then when I hear a man yelling outside.

…followed by the thundering herd of ladies rushing out of the bathroom…

And then darkness.


Guy didn't flick off and immediately turn the lights back on again to be like, "Hey, we gotta work on the bathroom…"  

He just shut them off until I got out of the stall. 

Then he turned them back on. 

You know what?  I'm going to take a moment to talk to you about my feelings when it comes to the dark and bathrooms. 
 
And mirrors in dark bathrooms. 








So, I don't know if you know this…

…but I'm a big chicken.

Bok bok bok.

A good show of this was back in the innocent days of Spice Girls and Pogs...

 
...my friends wanted to play the more traditional game of trying to summon a dead woman from a mirror. 

But, like, why?

I've never understood this.

If I could be summoned via mirror, I'd probably be pretty pissed (heh) to keep showing up in bathrooms due to little girls.

Just sayin'.

And when it all started going down, I opted out.

But I opted out in the most dramatic of ways.

Everyone else is giggling, and I'm running out of there like a lunatic going, "Just you wait.  Years in the future, she'll get you.  But me?  Naw, Man.  We have a respect." 

Part of this is that my stress level was pretty high (WAS?  Hahahahahaha My heart would probably just stop entirely if I chilled out for two fucking minutes at this point) and so I'd stress myself into seeing things.  

This included (and kind of still includes) seeing screwed up shit in reflections.

Especially in the dark.

I had gotten it into my head that all mirrors work like two-way mirrors, in that when the lights are out, you can see them back.

Otherwise, "they" are probably just seeing you.


 
That was my logic and-

UGH CRUD, you know, I'm trying to write this at night and I'm just creeping myself out I'M AN ADULT WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME

I used to run from the bathroom after flushing, because I knew when the sound of the flush was done, that was the DING of the timer and the mirror things would come out and eat my feet. 

So, I had to jump onto the bed to avoid them coming after me.

…and my feet.

They were somehow the same as the under-the-bed monsters.  

Closet monsters and I were cool though.

Look, I don't claim to understand the infrastructure of monsterdom, okay?

Actually, I should probably look into what the difference was.

I don't mean like, find an old tome to explain how monster society works, but sitting down and looking at my own logic.

For example, ants creep me the Hell out.

They're like the Borg and quietly invade personal space, so I hate them. 

And worms!  
I'm going to have to get over this one if I ever want to garden EVER.  
I think it's the fact that they're eyeless, limbless creatures that will eat my corpse if given the chance.

But then Silverfish are ACTUALLY creepy looking, right?  
But I looked them up and learned that they're the nerds of the bug world, kind of bullied by everybody else...

Which makes them okay in my book.





SO back to modern day work:
I get chased out of the stall pretty much mid-poop by this guy, and then he has the gall to just stand there in the small doorway.  

Like, Dude, if you want me to leave…

Fuckin' move.