A "Meeting in the Ladies Room" I Will Never Forget

Well, I survived the last couple of weeks with my 2 daughter's surgeries and my son's high school graduation.  Piece of cake.  Well, actually I think it's like child birth, there is some magic chemical in our bodies that makes us forget what hell we went through.

And I got some interesting stories out of it.  From my youngest daughter's 10 minute oral surgery that took her two days to recover from  anesthesia sickness to the baby that was my other daughter's roommate after her surgery whom no one ever came to visit :( to my son being stranded 20 miles from home at a prom after party that he went to as a last minute favor the night before graduation.  (he thought they were only staying an hour, he got stuck there til next morning) Ah, memories...

One in particular that happened to me sticks out though as a foreshadowing of my future... that I'll try to avoid.

My son went to an all boys Catholic prep school.  So as part of any good Catholic high school graduation, they have a baccalaureate mass earlier in the day before graduation.  My son had to get there early because he was singing at the mass with the school choir... and so we could get a seat, you know with us Catholics and our large families, seating was limited.


So, yea the mass... We had plenty of time to mill about and at one point my youngest daughter and I decide to go to the ladies room.  (oh great now I have Klymaxx's "Meeting in the Ladies Room" stuck in my head)  This particular ladies room had a long narrow, oh what would you call it, ya' know "lounge" with a sink and vanity and long counter for doing prissy lady things.  I lovingly refer to it as the "pre-toilet" room.  Then there is a one seater toilet room beyond this room.  My daughter and I are in line behind one other woman.  This "lounge" room is long and narrow, so you all have to stand in line for the loo up against the wall like a police line-up. 

The toilet room door opens and a cheery older woman comes out who is about in her 70s.  The woman ahead of us goes in the toilet room.  Older woman is chatting away "Oh sorry to hold everyone up!".  This woman was probably one of the boy's Grandmas.  She was wearing one of those "skirt suits" that old ladies wear with a skirt, an elaborately embroidered long jacket and rayon shell underneath, with a nice pair of sensible dress shoes and lots of diamond jewelry.  As she's walking out she's tugging at her skirt and chatting away.  I chatted back to be friendly as I always do.  My kids actually said they like that I can make friendly conversation with anyone from a cashier to a nasty DMV clerk.  Which is surprising because my parents did it when I was a kid and it used to embarrass the crap out of me.  "Jesus Mary and Joseph, Mom!  Do you have to talk to everyone, can't we just go?"

Right, so anyway, old lady comes out tugging and chatting, and then stops at the end of the counter space and is still chatting at me.  Due to the specs of the room, there was nowhere to look but directly at her.  She starts telling us that she got out quickly so as to let us all get in there and thought she would just adjust herself out in this particular area.  Well thanks for explaining lady, I thought perhaps you had crazed weazels up your skirt or something.  She chats more (for the life of me I can't remember the subject, maybe the weather, the school, I don't know) and she starts tugging at the ankles of her hose.  Then she moves up to tug at the knees.  Then the thighs.  Then she pulls up her skirt to her high thigh and goes up under her skirt and is pulling up there and doing the "adjusting the pantyhose dance" a bit.  I thought that was a little ummmm.. unlady-like, but ignored it. 

But then as she is still happily chatting away to me, she hikes her skirt up over her waist, which turns it inside out and now she can pull it up to her armpits and hold it there by closing her arms.  With her skirt all up in her armpits, she grabs the waistband of her pantyhose and starts pulling them up to her bossoms (as old ladies say) as she starts doing deep knee bends to scooch them up.  Ladies, we all know we've done this, but watching someone's Grandma do it in a public restroom is like walking in on your parents having sex, kinda' creepy.  Mind you she's still chatting away while doing the deep knee bends and yanking her hose over her gigantic dark colored granny (literally) panties.  I should win an award, I kept a straight face the whole time.  My 13 year old daughter made believe she was fixing her sandles so her eyes didn't burn from the spectacle.

Grandma soon finishes up and wishes us well and exits.  My daughter and I immediately turned to each other with the wide-eyed "what the hell was that?!" look and burst out laughing.  After we get done in the bathroom and are walking back into the church, my daughter says "Oh Mom, that's so you in 25 years".  And every time I told that story to my other 2 kids or my "Manfriend", they all responded with that same sentence!  Hey!  I know I'm a little quirky, and don't care what people think, and just make a joke out of everything but I'd like to think I had enough decorum not to yank my skirt over my head in a public restroom while I do calisthenics to adjust the crotch of my pantyhose!  Well, as I turn 47 this Monday (6/11), and my girls have had to stop me from walking into Wegmans with a giant ass-sweat stain on my khaki shorts on a scorching day... I guess only time will tell.

Have you ever had any odd public bathroom encounters?  Do leave a comment and tell...