A Moment of Mortification

“But I like the inconveniences.”

"We don’t.  We prefer to do things comfortably.”

 “But I don’t want comfort.  I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.  I want sin.”

"In fact, you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right, I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

In their defense, the public toilets here really aren't that bad. When compared to the squatters of China and Japan, they are paragons of convenient peeing. Consequently, I can forgive the Spanish toilets their annoying lack of cleanliness and toilet paper, if only because of its gracious, throne-like nature.

But forgiveness does not imply contentment, which is why I am always grateful for the toilet at my school which not only allows me to sit while relieving waste, but also provides oodles of toilet paper for my drying pleasure. The good stuff, too.

I would like to be clear: my embarrassment is not the fault of the Spanish toilet, and especially not this particular toilet. My embarrassment is the fault of my skirt, which hangs at exactly the height of the toilet bowl, my distraction due to a certain time of the month (the bane of my traveling experiences), and an inconveniently small bladder.

 All of this to say, I spent every minute of my break-time yesterday in the bathroom scrubbing an indelicate stain out of my (blessedly) black skirt and drying it in the hand-dryer. Oh bother.