Ever Vigilant

This is a true story, every word. Who could make this stuff up?

We're out to dinner with Tosca, our writer friend, and I didn't want to miss a moment of precious time with her. So I waited to use the bathroom until we got to Target, yes the very Target at which I used to work.

I select the first stall, not my favorite, but it was kind of urgent at this point. (Don't you have a favorite stall at the places you frequent most often? It really is just me?) Come to the end of my business when I notice there's no paper. Really, no paper at all. No little scraps stuck to the roll, nothing.

Take a breath, be calm, something will come to you. You'd be surprised what comes to your mind at that point. In my purse is not a scrap of tissue, maybe a reciept or two, but seriously now. There's someone moving about in another stall, but by the time I make a decision she's on her way out the door. Aha! There's my cell phone and the number to the store is in my directory. That could work, I could call the operator, ask for the Guest Service Team Lead and then explain my predicament. Josh the manager is cool enough and all, but no. So I wait.

Someone in a red shirt and khaki's, the standard Target ensemble, flits past the door to my stall. "Jen?" No response.

"Jen Crowther is that you?"

"No."

"You don't know me, but this is Kristin, I used to work here. There's no toilet paper in this stall."

Silence.

Finally she asked if she could bring me some. Oh, I was so relieved. Only a moment of awkward as we washed our hands at the same time.

We shopped and as we got in the car Jeff wanted to know what happened that took me so long in the bathroom. He said an elderly couple came and went since I had gone in and he wondered what happened in there. I told him the story and he was incredulous, "You mean you don't check before you go in?"

"No, I trust Target, they check the bathroom every hour."

He just laughed, that knowing chuckle a mockery to my naivety. He freely admitted to checking the stall at work and if there isn't paper he goes to another bathroom. Isn't that yours to deal with if you find it? "Oh no," he said, "you have to go tell Betty and that would just be weird. It'd be like talking to your Mom about using the bathroom." Isn't that better than the hot young chicks you work with? He said he just doesn't talk to anyone about missing paper, he just keeps moving on.

So, there you have it. All the problems in the world come down to one man.