Not As Smart As I Think I Are

"Men" "Women"

Sure, there are similarities between the two words, but they aren't that hard to tell apart. I mean, if you have a college degree, at least. The other night I was out seeing my friends' band, The Central Standards, play. They are Memphis-based folk rockers and they sounded great. At some point late in the night, I had to pee ("I believe he said he's got to go pee." What movie is that from?). So I went. Walked right into the bathroom, thought, "hmm, no urinals," and walked right into a stall. I considered not closing and latching the stall door, as I would just be peeing and it would just take a minute, but in the end, I closed it. As I was relieving myself, someone came in and went into the stall next to mine. After a moment a voice, a lovely feminine voice, called out, "So, who's the guy peeing in the women's room?" I guess she had seen the way my feet were pointing under the stall wall.

I was quite surprised. For a shade under a heartbeat (which is only figurative, because my heart had stopped doing that for just a second or two), I thought, "wow, how embarrassing for her. She's in the men's room." But that didn't last long. I pieced it together pretty quickly. No urinals, clean facility, girl telling me it was the women's room. Yeah, it was the women's room. I finished my business quickly and left. Luckily, no one else was coming in as I was leaving and only a couple people whose table was in view of the door saw me leave. They seemed a little curious, but not too concerned. It's not that big a deal, of course. Honest mistake and no harm done, but I really knew a lot of the people there that night. I wasn't the anonymous person you want to be when you forget to notice the difference between "Men" and "Women."

Now, looking back, I'm sorry I didn't answer the girl in the stall next to me. That could have been quite the funny conversation. Plus we could have been friends. We obviously had something in common, at least at that very moment. I'm just glad she didn't start asking for toilet paper, though. I couldn't spare a square.