Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Escape from the Toilet of Doom

Universities_clip_image001_0000In the West Building of uni, there is a small gents toilet. It is, as I said, a small toilet. It is fitted only with two cubicles and, unusually, there are no urinals.

This morning on my arrival on campus I made my way to the loo to clear out my cup of tea from breakfast. The long  drive from Brierley to Huddersfield makes me want to wee more than a running tap so that loo is often my first port of call.

Anyway, as I entered I noticed that, as usual, the cubicle on the left was closed and engaged. It was at this point I realised that every time I’ve used that particular loo the cubicle on the left has always been engaged.

pro_sp36_1 Today was a different day from all the other times I have been to uni as I was using the editing suite a few doors down the corridor and I was expecting to be in there all day (the editing suite that is, not the toilet). So I thought to myself I’d check throughout the day and prove to myself that surely people must come and go to that toilet and I’ve obviously just been a victim of bad timing.

So by 12pm I was in need of the loo again. I popped in and sure enough the door was closed and the smells emanating from the locked cubicle indicated that there was either someone definitely in there or there was a problem with the drains.

By 2pm I’d finished faffing and it was time for my third visit of the day. Sure enough the door was closed. This time the smells were accompanied by rustlings of toilet paper and shuffling about. At this point I was thinking to myself “Hmmm this chap has been in there all day. I hope he is ok”.

toilet-paper-toiletBy 4:30pm, it was time to go home. Rather than face the entire journey from Huddersfield to Brierley with an increasingly filled bladder, I thought I’d nip into the gents and prepare myself for the journey.

As I approached the main door to the toilet, I thought about the day and the year and how everytime I’d been to that toilet someone, perhaps the same someone, had been engaged in the left cubicle.

Was it some sort of toilet monster? Was it just some errant academic of faecal studies? Could it be some weird gateway to Poo Narnia? Or maybe there was someone who lived in the cubicle…after all…there was a Chinese student in Liverpool Uni who lived in the 24hr computer centre (Troofax).

I opened the door gingerly and there….to my abject horror…and utter terror….the toilet cubicle door………was……..

OPEN!
**insert dramatic music here**

 

Toilet door

 

Rather than risk death by poo monster, asphyxiation by noxious gases or being sucked into some faecal version of Middle Earth I still opted for the right hand cubicle. I made my business fast and swift doing up my fly zipper as I left the room to save time.

Who knows what horrors might have befallen me had I lingered?

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