The Great Escape!

Ok, I have to tell a story.  I'ts not a first hand account but it was relayed to me by Michael's mom who was there.  Not being a witness myself to the whole thing, I'm relying on her description of the circumstances of the event as it occurred.

It seems they had gone to San Francisco to do the tourist thing again.  While there, having ridden the cable cars and walking around for quite some time, Michael needed to find a restroom. Their search ended when they came upon a unit very similar to the one pictured below (this one is in Palo Alto).

These high-tech privies are state of the art and ready for serious business.  To get in, you push a button and the door slides open like the doors on the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek series.  Being the good mom, Roxann decided she would open the door and look inside before turning Michael loose in there.  She told him if the coast was clear, he could go do his business and then knock on the door when he was finished and she would let him out.  He thought that sounded like a good plan and went with it.  They pushed the button and SWOOSH went the door.  Things looked good to mom so Michael went in and all appeared to be going well.  When he was done, he knocked on the wall and Roxann pushed the button to let him out.  Nothing happened with the door but a little sign flashed up saying "Occupied".  No swoosh, no slide, not even a little creak. 

Now I'm a bit fuzzy on the exact chronology but sometime near this point, they realize with horror that the door only opens from the inside.  Not only that, there's no flush button.  You push the button to exit, the door opens and the releived visitor exits,the door shuts again, and the whole toilet does some kind of a super rinse so it's ready for the next needy passer-by.  Well Roxann is whacking away at the outside button and yelling at Michael through the wall telling him where she saw the inside button.  Michael was fumbling around on the inside trying to follow her directions and find the button on his side of the wall while people walking by were taking the whole thing in like it happens all the time.  Roxann says it was a little disconcerting to hear his cane tapping around the inside curves of the toilet stall as he searched for a way out.  Appearently, he'd made up his mind that any minute now, the rinse cycle is going to hit and he'll get drenched in whatever liquid the toilet squad uses as a disinfectant so the tapping got faster and faster.   I think this is the point where Roxann got a little perturbed with me as I couldn't hear her on the phone any more because I was laughing so hard.  I could picture them in my mind, her jabbing the outside button in a dither trying to get in and Michael fumbling around on the inside trying to find the way out while people from all over the world watched the whole thing unfold. 

He finally found the exit button and when the door slid open, Roxann grabbed him by the shirt and jerked him out of there before it closed on him and really did hose him down.

   

Needless to say, they worked it out and he didn't get flushed.  He might have gotten a little flustered but it all ended well enough.  I can't say if there were any lasting effects on them, but I know it sure helped lighten my morning.

The moral to the story is this, even though your mom loves you and would do anything for you, make sure you know how to get out of the bathroom before you let her close you in.  Good thing he's not claustrophobic or I might be paying the city of San Francisco for repairs to their auto-john.  What an adventure .....