Oopsy

I went to the movies with friends this afternoon. We saw “Crazy, Stupid Love”. Wonderful movie…funny, poignant and entertaining. I highly recommend it.

But that isn’t the point of this posting. It is what happened after the movie.

I had to use the restroom so I headed into the Ladies Room while my friends waited for me. I was waiting in line patiently (well, as patiently as a person can be when they had just had a large drink and really needed to go) and was the next one in line for an open stall when this little boy about 10 years old came in the bathroom and walked past me into the stall that had just been vacated. I thought maybe his mom was in one of the other stalls but this little boy was Hispanic and an older woman, not Hispanic, had just gone in one stall and a woman and little girl, also not Hispanic, came out of the third stall and none of them seemed to belong to the little boy.

I went ahead and used the empty stall and then went to wash my hands. At this point, the little boy was washing his hands and an older lady, waiting in line, pointed out to him that this was the Ladies Room. He denied it. She insisted that it is the Ladies Room (you would think that all the women in the bathroom would have given him a clue). He said it couldn’t be because his mom went in the other bathroom and sent him in this one to use it.

Then his eyes got big, he gasped and said “oh no” and RAN out the door. Oopsy!

His mom had misread the signs and she was in the Men’s Room. He had to go get her before she got in trouble for using the wrong restroom.

I feel bad that he was so embarrassed and upset but I couldn’t help but smile. Never have seen that happen before and I have used more than enough public restrooms. I would think that the figure of the man and the figure of the woman in the dress would be enough to distinguish between the bathrooms but apparently it wasn’t enough. Then again, I would think that the people of the opposite gender occupying the restroom would also be a huge clue. But, apparently it wasn’t.

Hopefully the mother and her son will learn to tell the difference. After all, not everyone in the world is as understanding as the people using the bathroom at the theater today. Someone could have made a huge fuss and the woman and her son could have not only been embarrassed but also thrown out. People can be so fussy about this kind of thing. I prefer to just smile and say “oopsy!”.