On our last morning at Disney, we had breakfast at The Contemporary, at Chef Mickey’s. Mythical wife and I agree that character meals are often great indulgences to partake in, especially with the kids, because it guarantees meeting a number of characters, without having to wait in gigantic lines, all while you get to relax inside an air conditioned place, eat and not be on your feet.
Anyway, I excuse myself to go to the restroom; and the first thing I do when I go into any public bathroom stall, is check the toilet paper. The last thing any man wants to happen is to do your business, only to shortly discover that there’s no toilet paper or an inadequate amount of toilet paper left. And it was good that I did this, because the first stall I went into, there was nothing but the roll of cardboard left on the roll. Poor form for Disney, because usually they’re on top of this kind of thing.
So I go into the adjacent stall, find sufficient TP left, and proceed to do my business. While I’m sitting there, I hear the door to the restroom open, and I hear the labored breathing. In an instant, my mind is racing, wondering if this guy is going to go into the stall next to me, and if he does, should I say something to warn him about the conundrum he’s inevitably going to have, but before I could do any more thinking, the guy is already in the stall, breathing like he was just in a race, belt buckle clanging on the ground and he’s sitting and destroying the planet in the blink of an eye.
Seriously, I’m picturing that scene in Dumb and Dumber when Harry has to crap like the apocalypse because Lloyd spiked his coffee with TurboLax hearing what is transpiring in the stall next to mine, and unsurprising I hear an exasperated “ahh shit” come from him, knowing that he’s probably just noticed that there’s no TP on the roll.
At this point, there’s a part of me that’s wondering if I should just stick to men’s room etiquette and keep my mouth shut and mind my own business, but at the same time, I am very much aware that there’s an emergency about to happen right next to me, divided only by an inch-thick metal wall.
There was a time in my life where I would just go the aforementioned route of feigning ambivalence and washing my hands of the situation, and leave the guy to fend for himself, but especially on a trip like this one, at Disney World, it occurred to me that there was a very high chance that this guy was like me, in the sense that he too was a dad, probably had dealt with a metric ton of bullshit, babysitting, kid-chasing and exasperation, and the absolute last thing he needed in the world was to be put in a scenario where he’d have to bare-ass it out of the stall and try to wash his asshole in a public sink and hope nobody comes in and sees it.
So after I was done with my business, I gently extended my roll of paper down low to beneath the bottom opening, and softly said, hey man I think you’re going to need this. He quickly grabbed the TP and was just like uhhh thanks, and I was off on my merry way back to my family. Although the interaction was short and very few words were spoken, I felt like I really did a very good deed, and I like to think that this guy knew how lucky he was to have been next to me, and didn’t have to think too hard on whether he should swallow his pride and ask or risk a worst of humanity situation.
I didn’t have to do what I did. I could’ve just feigned ignorance and left Harry to fend for himself. But from one dad to what I’m guessing was probably another dad, we endure a lot on these Disney trips, a bathroom meltdown shouldn’t be one of them. I’m glad I did what I did, and I think I did a really good deed and I applaud myself for it.
