Black Friday indeed

Dear Woman in the Bathroom at Ross:


Last week, I was in the stall next to you. Perhaps you didn’t hear me, or see me, or notice my shoes under the stall. I really want to give you every benefit of the doubt.

It’s holiday season, after all, and maybe you needed to beat someone else to a clearance pillow case that you spotted moments before nature called.

And I know we women tend to be creatures of habit. I understand the impulse to close an open door, shove a drawer closed, or open a public restroom door with a paper towel. Truly, if ever there was a sister who gets habits, it’s me.

But really, could you have maybe stopped for one second and thought before turning the light off when you left?

I don’t know if you noticed, but there are no windows in the bathroom at Ross, which means it’s REALLY dark when the lights are off. I mean scary dark. Like I wish-I-had-never-seen-the-commercial-for-The-Blair-Witch-Project dark.

Trust me, I know that of which I speak.

At first I thought to myself, “Is this what going blind feels like?” I had just that morning been to the eye doctor for my exam, and wondered what he had used in those eye drops. He did say my eyes were aging, but surely he that didn’t mean that I might go completely blind at any given moment.

Then I realized that, no, I had never heard of anyone going blind instantaneously … in a Ross bathroom. This made me start laughing out loud in the dark, because really, why do these things happen to me?

I’ve heard it said that women are their own worst enemies, but a public bathroom does not seem like a fair battle ground. Talk about a vulnerable opponent.

Then I realized that I was the same woman who had given birth to two babies, changed diapers one-handed when necessary, and sat up all night with sick children. Surely I could get myself out of this personal Hades, right?

The first part, getting out of the stall, wasn’t too hard. Because really, we can do this with our eyes closed. But then I had to remember where everything was positioned in the room. Was I in the end stall or has I passed a few? Was I about to walk into the sinks? Was the door on the right-hand side or the left-hand side? Where exactly is the light switch?

When I was recounting my travails at dinner that night, my 16-year-old son said with a smile, “Why didn’t you use the light from your cell phone?” NOW he tells me! He can be a punk sometimes.

But that’s not the point, is it? The overriding question remained: What kind of women turns off the light to a public restroom?

So dear Woman in the Bathroom at Ross (may I call you WITBAR for short?), next time you choose to cast me into total darkness before going to browse the clearance pillow cases, please consider tossing me a bone. Maybe roll a flashlight under the stall before you leave?

Help a sister out.