My sorry tale

This weekend gone by was miserable. My repeated viewing of X-Factor and other such reality TV shows has taught me that without public catharsis, or "closure", one can never move on from traumatic events. So, here is my sorry tale.

G and I were invited to lunch by a work colleague of G's, who lives in Essex. This should have been a happy event but, sadly, the trains were largely not running this weekend ("engineering work"). Our journey to Essex for lunch therefore began at 10.15 and lasted until 1 pm. It consisted of:

- a walk;
- tube ride;
- exchange at information desk with rude train information lady;
- further tube ride;
- wait in the cold for a "replacement train service" (ie, a bus);
- long journey on bus;
- short journey on train; and
- walk.

I should add that the weather this weekend was unbelievably crappy, and so our waits involved standing in the rain and wind, trying vainly to stop our umbrellas from turning inside out.

The ensuing lunch was lovely but somewhat marred by the knowledge we were going to have to repeat our journey to get home. And I also went through lunch rather traumatised by something that happened on the train leg of the journey.

I'm going to have to ask for indulgence here, as my story can't be understood unless you have some understanding of English train toilets. Thankfully, on this (as every) topic, there are numerous pictures available on the Internet and I have attached a couple.

The above shows the basic train toilet module. It's a unisex toilet. As you will see, the toilet faces the door. The sink is to the left of the toilet, although you can't see it in these photos. The door to the toilet cubicle is quite wide. The door opens and shuts by way of an electronic mechanism and you can't open or shut it manually. To go into the toilet you press the "open" button to the left of the door. The door then very slowly moves on its casings to the open position. Once inside, you press the "close" button on the inside of the door. You then press the "lock" button. This means that no one else can open the door from the outside (a trite fact, but one that it seems not everyone appreciates).

I avoid using train toilets at all costs. They are fraught with problems. My experience of communal male/female toilets has taught me that many men can't aim. That, even on a stationary toilet, some men have difficulties. Those difficulties are magnified on a toilet inside a moving train. And some men and women are just grotty. However, on this occasion, after a three hour journey and two coffees to keep me awake, I had no choice.

The train was packed, and outside the toilet cubicle, in the cabin, were lots of men and women standing as they couldn't get a seat in the train.

I went to the toilet cubicle and pressed the "open" button next to the door. The door then slowly opened to reveal a man peeing. Evidently, this man did not grasp the necessity of pressing the "lock" button. Worse still, he wasn't peeing in the toilet. Instead, he had chosen to pee in the handbasin. If he'd been peeing in the toilet, like a normal male, he would have been able to see the door open. As it was, peeing in the basin meant his back was to the door as it very slowly opened in full view of the numerous commuters standing outside it.

I have previously blogged about the complete lack of emotion shown on trains in England. This was an exception to that rule. There were gasps of shock as the man pissing in the sink was put on display. Worst of all, the noise of the gasps of shock, horror and then laughter drew commuters from the adjoining carriage to the area outside the toilet, to see what the fuss was about. All this while the door slowly opened and the man inside was completely oblivious. I think he may have had an IPod in his ears or something, as it was apparent he didn't hear the commotion. Meanwhile, I was standing by the toilet door frantically hitting the "close" button. Unfortunately, I discovered that the train toilet door won't begin to close until after it is fully open.

While I stood there panicking, hitting the close button, the commuters turned on me. Questions must have been asked as to how this had happened, and I heard a few very loud "she opened the door on him" and saw fingers jabbing the air in front of my face.

I think the man in the cubicle then realised what was going on, and I heard a shout from inside. So I panicked and I ran. Unfortunately, I mean this literally. I went from a standing still position to sprinting out of the carriage, which is quite a difficult thing to do, and causes some commotion in and of itself. Particularly when you have my lack of coordination. The unintended consequence of this, of course, was that anyone who hadn't already been drawn to look at the toilet area by all the noise now did so, and the laughter stopped being about the man peeing in the sink and I'm sure it was directed at the crazy running girl who opened the door on him.

I still hadn't recovered from the shock of the incident when we arrived in Essex. Worst of all, I couldn't even debrief by telling the group about the incident, thinking it perhaps not appropriate to relay a toilet story over lunch when first meeting a senior work colleague of G's.

I have another train journey to Shropshire this Thursday. I'm travelling for work, so first class. Nonetheless, I am going to avoid using the toilet.