3:16 PM: I print out a story I still need to read for my fiction writing workshop, which starts at 3:30. No problem--only 7 pages, and I need to poop--how could the situation be more ideal?
3:21: I make it to the 1-stalled bathroom outside of my classroom. Crap. Occupied. No problem--I'll just walk to the building next door.
3:23: Ah, life is good. 2 stalls--1 occupied, but I found my seat in the vacant one, and took a moment to gather myself together.
3:24: OK, better start reading. I whip the story out of my backpack, along with my cell phone to check the time. The cell phone goes flying straight between my legs and into the toilet. Shit. Without thinking, I plunge my hand into the bowl to retrieve my submerged communication device. Luckily, I had not deposited anything into the toilet at this point. In so doing, I splash toilet water all over the story I am supposed to be reading. I frantically try to dry the story and the phone with my shirt, rubbing vigorously. I begin to rustle around and cuss and stamp my feet--I feel self-conscious regarding my stall-mate next door, so I jam my headphones in and put on my iPod at full blast. Nothing like some nice '68 Dead to cool the brain waves. If the boy next door tries to talk to me, I am no longer accountable--I have thrust myself into happy frantic oblivion.
3:25: I glance into the toilet. The water is yellow. That's right folks: I dropped my phone into a toilet full of someone else's piss and wiped it all over my shirt. And splashed it all over a story I am supposed to hand back to the author. To confirm my observation, I smelled my fingers. Yep. Luckily, the piss-and-run offender seemed to have been reasonably hydrated.
3:26: This is not funny yet.
3:27: I realize I've neglected my original purpose in sitting on the toilet. So I try again. Meager results. Now, those of you who know me are aware of the length of the fingernails on my left hand, for guitar-picking purposes. And those of you who are familiar with the UVa bathrooms are also aware of the thinness of their toilet paper. Put them together? You get a fingernail full of you know what.
3:28: Still not funny.
3:29: Gather my belongings, turn up my music, wash my hands thoroughly, and get the fuck out of that bathroom from hell.
3:30: Suck down a cigarette and stroll on into my fiction writing workshop, on time, drying story in hand (yes, it dried completely, and yes, I handed it back to the writer, and yes I may be a horrible person for doing so, but urine is sterile and and and...yeah. There aren't really any good excuses for that one. Sorry 'bout that.)
6:00--10:30: I spend hours obsessively looking at all the new smart phones I can buy, the man who said he'd never own one, who now just simply NEEDS to have one.
10:31: I realize I'm being silly and reaffirm my choice to not buy a smart phone.
10:42: Indefinitely phoneless, I laugh for the first time about the misfortunes of my day.
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