domo arigato

i've got a secret. tonight i walked into the men's bathroom accidentally. i've never done that before in my life. never even as the little girl following her dad, or the school kid tricked by mean classmates. and leave it to me to kick things off right by wondering in at 10:30 at night, in my pajamas, onto an african man by himself trying to urinate in peace. allow me to explain.

so i've been house sitting for this couple. well it gives me the creeps. it's this big house on a hill with lots of bedrooms and closed doors and i'm there all by myself with some cats. so sometimes i stay the night there and sometimes i go back to my dorm room. i stay on the nights i feel like watching a dvd or cooking myself dinner. the other nights i high-tail it back down the hill in the dark, waving my flashlight around and singing hymns. well today left me in a bit of a pickle. i slept in really late after staying up to watch 'forever young' with adeline and phil. classic film. mel gibson in his prime, and playing a pilot no less. anyway, so i slept in and was woken up by a text from phil reminding me that we were leaving at 11 to go to entebbe with the honours college gang. 10:25. oops. so i get up and get ready all quick and then on the walk to the taxi park, remember that i hadn't fed the animals. well, whatever, i'll feed them when i get back.

so we hang out at entebbe beach all day, laying in the sun, playing frisbee, eavesdropping on south africans speaking afrikaans. and by the time we head back it's already dark. not a great idea for road travel as it is and now we'll be getting back late and i'm hungry and sunburned and have to pee and can't wait to get back to my bed and read. and then i remember the cats. well i was specifically told that if the day should come when i couldn't feed them, don't worry, they wont die from one day. so great, this is my one day.

so i get back to my room, get in my jammies and go to pee. someones in the bathroom. i go back to my room and wait. a few minutes later i go back to the bathroom, the door is still shut. i really have to pee, so i bend down and look under the door. no one's there! great, so i start to open the door, all the while wondering why someone would shut the door with the light on and no one in it. as i open the door, i hear a funny rustling sound. naturally, i immediately think: black mamba hiding in the toilet. so i quickly shut the door and run back to my room. well this isn't gonna work at all. i've got to pee and its hitting critical mass.

then i have a brilliant idea! i'll just walk up to the house, feed the cats, pee, get something cold to drink from the fridge, and then come back to my room. i get to pee without fear of black mambas and sleep guilt-free after feeding the cats. so i head out right then and there, not worrying about my pajamas because surely i wont run into someone at this hour of the night. and so i'm off for the long, dark walk to the big house on the hill.

well half way there, i remember that there are outdoor bathrooms near my dorm, next to the classrooms. this is even better. forget the cats, i'll pee and head back. it's too dark anyway. all of this is running through my head as i'm shuffling sleepily along, up the dirt path to the classrooms and into... the men's bathroom. i round the corner, wondering when they redecorated with this grey paint, and run right into a man mid-pee in what appears to be one tiny room for a urinary free-for-all. 'oh my! sorry!' and then i jog all the way up the hill to the big empty house.

when i got back to my dorm, the bathroom door was open and there were no snakes anywhere. someone had just taken a dump and was trying to keep the smell out of the hall.