cherished childhood memories, vol. 3: trapped in the (water) closet

You may remember from a previous edition of "cherished childhood memories" that when I was 12, my family lived in Paris. Today I am going to share the story of one fateful day in Paris when an ordinary lunch turned into... well, a terrifying disaster.

It all started when my family went out to lunch at a small restaurant that we had never been to before. I don't remember what the restaurant was called, or where it was, or what I had to eat (though it was probably steak hache avec les frites, if I had to take a guess, since that was all I ever ate). What I do remember is this: In the middle of the meal, I excused myself to go use the bathroom, which was in the basement, down a flight of stairs. AND IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.

wow... i am really bad at drawing stairs.

The stalls of this bathroom were more like little rooms; they had floor to ceiling doors made of heavy wood, with sturdy metal doorknobs. I didn't think much about that, until the second I pulled the door closed and felt it slam into place. Immediately, I knew there was a problem. I tried the handle. It wouldn't budge. The door was stuck, and with no space to crawl under the stall door, that meant I was trapped. I tried the handle again. And again. And again. I used my full body weight to push the handle down and the door open. Still no luck. After several minutes of trying and failing to open the door, it dawned on me that I wasn't going to get out of there on my own.

I had only been attending school in Paris for about a month at that time, so I didn't know how to speak much french at all. "AH! I hate my teachers!" I thought, "They made me learn all the words to a useless poem about [bleeping] daffodils, but they haven't managed to teach me a single practical phrase, like how to say 'I'm trapped in the toilet!' or even, you know, 'Somebody help me!'?!". All I could come up with was, "S'il vous plait, la porte est fermee." which translates to "If you please, the door is closed." - not exactly a phrase that conveyed the seriousness of the situation, in my opinion. In fact, it sort of sounded like something a rich old lady who thinks she is too important to open a bathroom door herself would say to her butler. But it was all I knew to say, so it would have to do.

I started calling for help by tentatively knocking on the door and saying in a low voice, "S'il vous plait, la porte est fermee." I was a little embarrassed by my terrible french vocabulary, but I figured it would only take a few seconds before someone heard me. Alas, I was wrong. After a minute, knocking and speaking in a calm voice turned into banging and shouting in a panicked voice, "S'IL VOUS PLAIT LA PORTE EST FERMEE!!!!!". And yet, despite the shouting, several minutes passed and no one came. I was starting to freak out. To calm myself down, I told myself that, surely, my parents would notice that I'd been gone for a long time and would come check on me. Wrong again. It had been almost 20 minutes at this point, and still, no one had come. Tears were starting to stream down my face and my knuckles were starting to get sore and raw from the knocking.

Just as I was starting to accept the fact that I was going to die in that stall, the maitre d' heard me shouting and came to my rescue. He yanked open the door, with a big smile on his face and immediately started speaking in very rapid french. I only understood about 10% of what he was saying, so I did what any awkward person would do, nodded as if I understood, sniffed back my tears, and then said in a small voice, "La porte avait ete ferme..." ("The door was closed..."). He took my hand and guided me back upstairs to our table, where he continued to speak in his rapid francais, until the blank stares clued him into the fact that we had no idea what he was saying.

When he finally left us, I asked my parents why they hadn't noticed that I'd been gone for AGES and come looking for me.
My parents: "Well, we figured you were just off in your own world."
Me: "In the bathroom? I was gone for over 20 minutes!"
My parents: "And...?"

I learned some important lessons that day:
1. Apparently my accent was good enough to fool a french maitre d'!
2. Always go to the bathroom with a friend, just in case.

3. It is important to know how to say "Help" in several languages. 

And finally: 4. My parents thought of me as such a fluffy space cadet that they genuinely found it conceivable that I would get so distracted that I would spend 20 minutes in a bathroom FOR FUN (distracted by what - the rolls of toilet paper?). THANKS MOM AND DAD.

A space cadet, huh? Well, guess what, I'm all grown up and getting my PhD now, so you can take your "space cadet" and shove - OOOH LOOK A CAT VIDEO!