The Light At the End Of The Tunnel
Two people have told me that I need to post this here. It is a stupid and embarrassing story, but when has that ever stopped me? We just got our bathrooms redone at work and one of the new features is that everything is automated....including the lights. You go in and the lights come on. Then after an appropriate amount of time, they go off. Now that the bugs are worked out that is.
This incident happened a couple of weeks after the 'grand opening' and apparently the timer wasn't set correctly because I went in the bathroom, sat down and immediately the lights went out. Talk about dark! It's essentially a concrete bunker in there with no windows. I blame the panic that this Inside-Jonah's-Whale darkness caused on what happened next because it didn't even begin to occur to me to get up, leave the stall and make the light come back on. No,I love a good challenge so all of my MacGyver skills kicked in and I immediately started looking for ways to make the light come on from the safety and comfort of my seated position. Hey don't judge me until you're alone in that kinda darkness with your knickers around your knees!
First I tried waving my arms. Yeah. I think the only reason the lights come on when I go in the bathroom is because the door is tall enough to set off the sensor-not because of MY tremendous height. So seated behind the stall door waving my tiny little T-Rex arms wasn't the brightest idea in my arsenal...but it was just the first attempt.
Hmmmm....what would Macgyver do? I felt around my prison...and found a stray roll of toilet tissue. YAY! I can launch this over the door, triggering the sensor and the lights will come on. Gosh, I am so smart it scares me sometimes. I carefully line up in the pitch darkness and toss the paper. Not high enough. It hit the back of the stall door, then me, the the floor. I spent another two minutes trying to find it whilst still seated on my throne. Aha! Gotcha.
This time I remembered that the new stalls were pretty tall, so I would have to throw it up high and it probably wouldn't hurt to put a little pepper behind it for good measure. I threw high and hard. At this point a lot of things happened at once. Most importantly the light came on. I gave myself a fist-pump-in-the-air thinking that I was a finorkin' genius and there was a bloodcurdling scream!
Apparently the lady that walked in the restroom just then was responsible for the light coming on. I was solely responsible for the near-stroke she had when from out of the darkness of an apparently empty ladies' room, she was struck down with a perfectly spiraled roll of pseudo-Charmin. I always did have an arm.
She screamed and yelled 'What's going on in here!'. I stumbled out of the stall (NOW I thought to stand up), winking and blinking and trying to explain that the lights went out. She didn't understand the problem, my awesome solution to said problem, or why I thought it was funny and hurried out of the room.
I'm sorry I scared her. If I knew who she was, I would apologize but I don't think she works here and I haven't run into her again. I'd like to thank her for coming in when she did because my next idea was to light some paper on fire and hold it up to the sprinkler system so the emergency lights would come on. The timer situation SEEMS to have been worked out now, but I pack a flashlight just in case. I don't want to know how much it would cost in damages should they find me by the lovely glow of the emergency lights, in a flooded bathroom, holding a lighter!
I do these experiments so you don't have to....and so that you can feel better about yourselves. On your very worst day....you would have known enough to just stand up!
This incident happened a couple of weeks after the 'grand opening' and apparently the timer wasn't set correctly because I went in the bathroom, sat down and immediately the lights went out. Talk about dark! It's essentially a concrete bunker in there with no windows. I blame the panic that this Inside-Jonah's-Whale darkness caused on what happened next because it didn't even begin to occur to me to get up, leave the stall and make the light come back on. No,I love a good challenge so all of my MacGyver skills kicked in and I immediately started looking for ways to make the light come on from the safety and comfort of my seated position. Hey don't judge me until you're alone in that kinda darkness with your knickers around your knees!
First I tried waving my arms. Yeah. I think the only reason the lights come on when I go in the bathroom is because the door is tall enough to set off the sensor-not because of MY tremendous height. So seated behind the stall door waving my tiny little T-Rex arms wasn't the brightest idea in my arsenal...but it was just the first attempt.
Hmmmm....what would Macgyver do? I felt around my prison...and found a stray roll of toilet tissue. YAY! I can launch this over the door, triggering the sensor and the lights will come on. Gosh, I am so smart it scares me sometimes. I carefully line up in the pitch darkness and toss the paper. Not high enough. It hit the back of the stall door, then me, the the floor. I spent another two minutes trying to find it whilst still seated on my throne. Aha! Gotcha.
This time I remembered that the new stalls were pretty tall, so I would have to throw it up high and it probably wouldn't hurt to put a little pepper behind it for good measure. I threw high and hard. At this point a lot of things happened at once. Most importantly the light came on. I gave myself a fist-pump-in-the-air thinking that I was a finorkin' genius and there was a bloodcurdling scream!
Apparently the lady that walked in the restroom just then was responsible for the light coming on. I was solely responsible for the near-stroke she had when from out of the darkness of an apparently empty ladies' room, she was struck down with a perfectly spiraled roll of pseudo-Charmin. I always did have an arm.
She screamed and yelled 'What's going on in here!'. I stumbled out of the stall (NOW I thought to stand up), winking and blinking and trying to explain that the lights went out. She didn't understand the problem, my awesome solution to said problem, or why I thought it was funny and hurried out of the room.
I'm sorry I scared her. If I knew who she was, I would apologize but I don't think she works here and I haven't run into her again. I'd like to thank her for coming in when she did because my next idea was to light some paper on fire and hold it up to the sprinkler system so the emergency lights would come on. The timer situation SEEMS to have been worked out now, but I pack a flashlight just in case. I don't want to know how much it would cost in damages should they find me by the lovely glow of the emergency lights, in a flooded bathroom, holding a lighter!
I do these experiments so you don't have to....and so that you can feel better about yourselves. On your very worst day....you would have known enough to just stand up!
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