Today’s message is addressed to guys who keep banging at the toilet door in public places.
After failing in their first attempt to open the toilet door, they issue a second attempt, this one with most gusto. The third attempt is often made with mounting aggression, and — I am not sure I am imagining this– a spark of irritation, as if they feel some force unknown is unjustifiably denying them what is rightfully theirs.
Such people eventually come to the conclusion they should have arrived at two pushes and two shoves ago: that perhaps the door is locked.
Now, to be fair, there are various reasons why it would be locked.
- It is not an actual toilet. That is the special sex-room the waiters and waitresses use when they meet customers who cannot pay in cash and need to therefore settle their bills in other ways. This is Uganda. Ugandans are all about sex and corruption. A sexual bribe is our national culture at its most pure. That is the sex-room and you can’t get in if you have enough money to pay for your food. You should not have paid.
- This door is the portal to the African Narnia and can only be opened by the chosen one. If you are not the chosen one, it will not open. Your soul is not pure.
- There is someone in there who won’t mind company and would actually welcome a friend. The more the merrier. In fact there is probably a whole party of crapping in there at that moment, and that is why the door won’t open easily. The room is crowded. All you have to do is push a bit harder and then you, too, can join the fun!
- It is being used by a person who does not wish to be disturbed. This person is so antisocial, so misanthropic that he or she has taken the precaution of locking the door in a bid to prevent abrupt entrances such as yours interfering with their activities. Some people are selfish like that.
How can you tell which of these options is the one preventing you from opening the door?
Some would say it is a simple matter of weighing the odds or looking at the statistics. Which is more likely: that the door is locked because the lavatory is occupied or that the door is locked because of some other reason?
The men we address today, they don’t leave things to statistics, they don’t leave things to chance. They will not accept the hypothesis that the door is locked because someone else is using the lav. Not without proof. They will demand that the person inside, if it is a person at all, proves their presence.
So they will knock.
And then wait. Until the person inside gives evidence they will not be satisfied.
The fact that a door that can only be locked from the inside is locked, the fact that a door that is often, in the course of the day, going to be locked from the inside for obvious reasons is not enough for them.
You have to prove that you are not a robot.
Guys, I am tired of getting up to knock back. Now, I just let you knock. Whether I entertain your need to hear proof that occupied toilets are occupied or whether I ignore your knocks, the end result is the same for both of us: I shall evacuate my bowels at my pace and you will have to wait.
You could say, “But sir, why don’t you just be polite and knock back?”
Because I have nothing to prove to you.
So, in conclusion, dear guys banging at the toilet door, the fact that it didn’t open the first time you tried doesn’t mean you should keep trying and trying. It means the seat is occupied by someone who is not going to let you in. Give up.
