Forget bathroom humor.
Today we’re talking bathroom drama.
Several instances of washroom woes have made headlines lately.
Karen Perrin, wife of former Redskins running back Lonnie, recently experienced quite a potty predicament. She had been working late on a Friday night at her Washington office and stopped in the restroom before heading home.
Only when she went to exit the lavatory, she couldn’t. She was locked inside. With no one around.
No problem, she’d use her wireless phone.
But, wait! Her phone was back at her desk. Nooooo!
Realizing she was trapped, Karen told ABC News, she “felt like I was going to die in there because of the anxiety I was feeling.”
No doubt. Spending even five minutes in a communal bathroom is enough to give most women a serious fright.
Desperate for help, Karen shoved some 200 paper towels under the door hoping to catch the surveillance guards’ attention. She attempted an unsuccessful escape via ceiling hatch. With a metal bar she discovered, she hacked through a wall next to the door. (“I thought about Shawshank Redemption,” she said, referring to the 1994 prison movie starring Tim Robbins in which his character, Andy, tunnels to freedom. Karen stopped short of escaping via stinky sewer pipe.)
Eventually she was able to claw her hand through and open the door from the other side. She was finally free and able to connect with her husband who was organizing a search party.
Eight. Whole. Nightmarish. Hours. Later. Shudder.
After hearing Karen’s tale of toilet terror, a friend of mine - we’ll call her Lisa Fischer, co-host of the morning show on Little Rock’s KURB-FM, B98.5 - says she’ll never go to the restroom without her phone again.
Good plan. Until the cellphone inevitably falls in for a baptism by bowl.
I have a way simpler solution, ladies: Just don’t work late! And certainly not on a Friday night - please!
(Also, gals, don’t confuse your phone with your firearm. This month a Kentucky man set his pistol atop the toilet paper dispenser in a Fazoli’s Italian fast-food restaurant, only to have it fall and shoothim in the leg. He clearly was not using his noggin.)
Another woman - Ilyanna De La Keur of Georgia - found herself stuck in a Home Depot bathroom, literally. The woman, the victim of a prank, was glued to a toilet seat for some 25 minutes before help was called. She was freed by paramedics - and thanks to WD-40 (yet another use for the miracle spray). In which case, maybe she’s fortunate it was in a Home Depot if this had to happen.
Or not. Hasn’t this same situation happened in hardware stores before? And haven’t I written about it? Why, yes!
In fact, several men have claimed similar situations at different Home Depots around the country and filed lawsuits over the years. (Who are these people who don’t look at a public restroom seat before sitting down? Heck, who are these people sitting down instead of hovering?)
Update! According to The Augusta Chronicle, after reviewing store video footage, police suspect Ilyanna could be the prankster.
Deputy Sheriff Carissa McFaddin was quoted as saying: “There is no evidence to show that someone did it besides who was in there.”
In which case, Ilyanna was the butt of her own joke.
Flush an email to: [email protected] What’s in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman ’hood.
Style, Pages 29 on 12/17/2013