Scene in a Bathroom

I was finishing up in the ladies' room in the basement of the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt and was standing three inches away from the mirror, re-applying a thin line of eye pencil, when I heard the two young women.

"Don't you just hate it when people come to class and insist on reading their bad poetry?"

"I really do.  I hate bad poetry."

"Why do they even think for a minute that they can, like, write?"

"Exactly."

I put my eye pencil back into its blue case and checked my hair, which I determined was a lost cause.

"Why are they even in English Writing?"

I couldn't keep still any longer.  I whipped around.  "Who are you to criticize other students?  Especially in a public place where anyone can hear."

"Who the hell are you?" Girl number 1 asked.

"A fellow student who likes to cut people some slack and who knows that student writing tends to improve from the beginning of a term to its end," I said, noticing that a woman was standing nearby, watching.

"Well, we happen to know what we're talking about.  We've been around for awhile."

"You've been around for a while?  You?  Surely you can see that I am about 30 years older than you?  Didn't your mother, who's probably younger than me, teach you that it's extremely tacky to badmouth people, especially in public places?  No one wants to hear that, especially not me."

They flounced out.  I was half hoping hundreds of women would pour out of the stalls, clapping and cheering, making me the champion of all; but mostly the other women in the bathroom ducked their heads, or hid their faces behind long bangs and curls that fell forward, and shuffled out the door after washing their hands.  No eye contact.

The problem was that I had ventured into an area that was none of my business.  Right or wrong, it was none of my business, and everybody knew it.  Furthermore, I had shattered the white noise silence of the ladies' room; and in so doing, could have forced all of us to suffer through an endless barrage of opinion and counter-opinion voiced by any number of women present that could have turned into a veritable bathroom brawl.  Mostly though, I sort of made a scene that I think just embarrassed everyone, and they were all delighted to get out of there and go do something else as quickly as possible.

"My work here is done," I thought, as I exited the building.

It was a relief to catch the 5th Avenue bus and ride home.  When I walked in the door, Webster was barking at me.  I think I was lucky to get off that easily. 

Comments

[anna]

Good for you! They needed that :) Maybe it will make them think twice and consider what people might be saying about *their* writing.

Hope you are having a great evening! I'm writing a paper on cystic fibrosis for school. Fun! It's for a science class, but I couldn't let my english writing major hide, so I did it in a 12-year-old girl and her cat diary format.

Not much new here--I am fostering 3 kittens (one is asleep on my lap right now), and I am in love with them!

Hope all is well!