Crazy guy in the bathroom

On Saturday my wife and I drove to Sarasota to finish paperwork on a car she bought a week ago. Thirty-minute drive, ten minutes reading and signing stuff.

Five minutes into our drive home, my wife pulled into a convenience store parking area. This was a no-name store, a decade or so old, in need of paint,  outside cleanup and window-washing. My wife got out of the car and went into the convenience store. She did not say why she stopped, but I had a pretty good idea. I have a condition that in medical books is listed as “I GOTTA PEE NOW!” Usually I get about five minutes before the side effect “TOO LATE” arrives. That side effect never has arrived, but the condition hits only when I am at home (so far, knock on wood) and only a few steps from a bathroom. In Sarasota, my wife returned after only a few minutes, started the car, and we drove away.

A few blocks down the street, she pulled into a McDonald’s, parked the car and went to the restaurant. This time she returned after about a minute. Starting the car, she said, “A sign on the door said the inside is closed, so there is no bathroom open.”

A few more blocks, she pulled into a named convenience store, new, bright paint and clean windows. This time, my wife was gone for more than five minutes, maybe more than seven, so I figured the store’s bathroom was open and functioning. My wife returned, and we were on the road again.

“I apologize,” she said. I said what I always say when she suddenly pulls into a convenience store and we don’t need gas: “You don’t have to apologize.” It happens to most people who, ah, get up in years.

“The first one we stopped at,” my wife said, “I asked the man inside if there was a ladies room. He said there was. He pointed all the way across the store. ‘It’s outside,’ he said. Then he said, ‘There’s a crazy guy in there, but just knock on the door and he’ll come out.’”

My wife was not exactly looking forward to all that, but sometimes necessity overrides everything else.

“I went to the place outside,” she said. ”There was a sign on the door saying the rest room was not working and it was closed. I went inside and told the man. He said it wasn’t really closed. ‘Just knock on the door. He’ll come out.'

“I am not knocking on a door where a crazy guy has made his home. What’s he going to say when I say, ‘Uh, listen. I really need to come in and use your bathroom’? ‘Sure. Just let me tidy things up a bit’”? As far as he is concerned, that is his home.”

I agreed with my wife. I also wondered for a moment why the store owner hasn’t contacted police and had the crazy guy removed? I know that is a hassle and would not be good publicity on TV news, a couple of police cars, lights, and possibly two or three police pulling the crazy guy from what he decided is his home. A no-win for everybody.

But, how long can store people say, “There’s a crazy guy there, but just knock on the door and he’ll come out”? A dozen or less knocks, the crazy guy might become upset. Then there is a real no-win for everybody.