Allow me to set the scene:

The ladies restroom at the Albany airport.

The characters:

Moi (fancy me)  and an auto flush toilet.

   (this is the toilet, there is no picture of me)

20 minutes before boarding a 6 hour direct flight I enter the ladies room.    I have an aversion to the restrooms on airplanes (something to do with being sucked out of the plane, totally irrational but I probably saw it on TV when I was younger……like when I was 50 or something) and wanted to make sure I didn’t have to go anywhere near one in the next 6 hours.

I enter the first stall and find that the latch is broken so I back my carry-on bag out and enter the next stall.

The latch works just fine.

I grab one of those nifty little paper toilet seat covers and it tears in half as it comes out.    I roll my eyes but grab another.   This one stays in one piece so I bend forward to place it on the germyish(yes that is a word, it is my word that I just made up)  toilet seat (remember your mother always told you “DO NOT SIT ON THAT SEAT!!!”).  As I get it placed and begin to turn around,  the toilet flushes the cover away.    I utter a small sigh, look at my watch and grab another seat cover.   I move to the side of the toilet thinking that maybe it won’t see me.   I bend over sideways and place the cover.    So far so good and I slowly stand up straight to move into position.  Dammit! there goes another cover!

In hindsight at this point I should have moved back to the latch less stall and taken my chances on the door flying open but no…. now it was a battle.

I decided to ninja that seat cover on.   I got all ready to use the bathroom and holding that seat cover in approximate position behind me I stealthily sat down.      Right as I lowered myself to the point of no return and the little hanging down tab on the seat cover was dangling in the water, the toilet flushed again.  I called it a “son of a bitch” and prayed to the Lysol gods to protect my flesh from the germs my mother warned me about.

As I finished up and got ready to leave the stall I waited for the toilet to flush itself.   You guessed it……….it didn’t.    I had to push that dirty little black button.

I’m pretty sure I heard that potty laughing as I left the stall.