My Bathroom Adventure
So, as you may know, I work at a day care center a town over from mine. I still take the para-transit bus and one thing I cannot stand is that it is either super early or late. Recently one day my bus came early and I had like 20 minutes to kill before clocking in. Luckily for me there is a Subway Shop right next door. I have been feeling pretty comfortable in my weekly routine and don’t really get nervous anymore when I go to one of the shops in the plaza where I work. When my bank statements come its pretty obvious what I do before clocking into work, or waiting for the bus to come get me. What a perfect way to spend some time and I was feeling kind of hungry anway so……
I walked into the sandwich shop, feeling confident. I had been there many times before and always ordered the same thing – turkey with lettuce, tomatoe, cheese and pickles on a 6 inch italian sub. As I was enjoying my sandwich I realized I only had a few minutes before clocking in so I decided I had better use the bathroom before someone else comes in. I never really use the bathroom at work because there is no privacy and a lot of times the employees get walked in on by the kids. Yep. Safer to use the bathroom at Subway. I got up and asked the girl behind the counter if I could use their bathroom. She thought this was an odd questions but pointed to the door. I don’t know, I had never used it before, some places don’t let you use their bathrooms. Anyway, I was going to leave my purse in the booth then I thought, wait, if someone comes in, they could steal my bag, so I grabbed it. Thank God I did….
After I took care of business and washed my hands I went to open the door and it was stuck. Of course I immediatley panicked. Then I got a grip. I figured maybe my hands weren’t dry enough and that’s why I couldn’t get it opened. I ripped a papertowel from the dispenser and gave my hands a good drying. When I tried the door again – same thing – stuck. SHIT!!!!! Full panic set in. I was grabbing and pulling at the doorknob like a maniac. My heart was beating out of my chest and I thought I was going to cry. Instinctivley I began banging on the door. Where the hell is that girl that was behind the counter???? What the hell? Did she leave? Why can’t she hear me? I can hear her humming away in the back. I began kicking the crap out of the walls and yelling for help. “Help, I’m locked in the bathroom!”. Nothing. Really? Am I going to have to stay here until another customer needs to use the bathroom? I was beyond freaking out at this point.
Then I thought…stupid, you have your phone. Call your mom. So I called her, only being locked in the bathroom of a cement building the call kept getting dropped. When I was finally able to get through my mom couldn’t really understand me. The only thing she understood was that I was absolutely hysterical. She kept telling me to calm down and slow down but could only catch 2 or 3 words. She had no idea why I was crying. The funny part is that I always call her to let her know when I get to work and what I plan on doing before clocking in. Wouldn’t you know that this day I didn’t. I am really trying hard for my independence but it seems like I always get a kick in the ass. Frustrated my mom yells into the phone over my shrieking voice –“ go near a window or something, Amy, I can’t hear you.” My mom thought I was already at the daycare. Why wouldn’t she? I was supposed to be there by the time all this went down. I screamed into the phone that I couldn’t. She heard me but still had no clue what the hell was going on. Now she panicked, telling me to text if I could. Text? Why didn’t I think of that? This is the text my mom received:
“I AM LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM AT SUBWAY”
My mom didn’t know what to do first. My father was leaving the driveway and she yelled to him that I was locked in a bathroom next door to work. He looked at her and said, call her work, they could run next door and get her out. Mom thought I would be mortified if she called my boss to tell her I needed help getting out of there. I do get embarrassed very easily and normally I would have rather died in there than have anybody from work come and get me but to her surprise I had wished that’s what she did. Instead my mom called the restaurant. She got the girl that had made my sandwich. She didn’t speak english that well. When my mom told her that she had a customer locked in the restroom, she hung up probably thinking it was a prank phone call. My mom called right back. She told her not to hang up that her daughter was locked in the bathroom. She asked her, “didn’t you just have a customer in there who used the bathroom? Didn’t you notice she didn’t come out? “ Mom asked her to please check the door and try to open it. She said “ok.” My mom told her that she would like to stay on the phone with her while she checked. She said “ok.” Then she hung up.
A few minutes later the employee who was probably thinking someone was messing with her, just popped open the door. No problem at all. I felt like a jerk. We were both surprised to see other. I am red and blotchy from freaking out with tear stained cheeks. She looked a little nervous. We both laughed. I asked her how she opened that door. She just smiled. Now I am thinking, was the door even locked? With my Deletion 22q11 sometimes my mind messes with me. I tried to pull my self together. I called my mom with a full signal to let her know I was “free”. We both laughed now that I was out. “Only you, Amy!” is what she told me.
So, my day that started out with having 20 something minutes to kill before work turned out with me being about 15 minutes late for work. I never got to finish my sandwich and after that whole ordeal I really needed to use a bathroom but God knows I was not going to use any public bathroom anytime soon!
When I got home and was calm and safe in my own environment, I looked back on the day and thought about how good I was feeling when I left that morning and how confident I had felt, how independent- I was going to have a quick bite by myself, it all turned to crap within a few minutes. I feel like like this is something that always happens to only me. I mean, really…….
