We Have Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

"This is the bravest thing I have ever done," I said to my son. He looked at me skeptically, to see if I was being sarcastic or ironic or blatantly exaggerated; I was, after all, standing on a cruise ship. I was not joking; I meant it.

I like the explanation that Will Smith's character delivers in the movie "After Earth" about fear. "Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real, but fear is a choice." Bravery, we know, is not the absence of fear, but the ability to work through it or past it.

Everyone likes to believe that their own fears are reasonable, and everyone else's fears are silly. I will readily admit this in myself. My fear is water - specifically, being trapped underwater and drowning. Dark water, deep water and submerged manmade objects intensify these fears. I feel the same way about this as the explanation of fear of heights from the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" - "Fear of heights is irrational and silly. Fear of falling, however, is prudent and evolutionary." Water can kill you.

I am not afraid of spiders, snakes or germs. I realize that under some circumstances, these things can kill you, but most times, they do not. If you put a person inside a sealed box of venomous snakes or spiders, it would be possible to avoid being bitten for an extended period of time. If you are still and don't startle them, chances are that they'll leave you alone. Even if you are bitten, chances are that you won't die. Germs don't care how calm you are, but a reasonably healthy person can fight off most germs automatically, without even knowing they're there. That's the entire job of the immune system. If you put a person in a sealed box full of water, on the other hand, they will die. Not "might" or "could," not "under the right circumstances," not "if you thrash or frighten it," but "WILL, " within a matter of minutes. They will die.

I try to be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when dealing with others and their fears. Still, I sometimes find myself being impatient when the fear is not life and death. For instance, I know that the fear of public speaking usually ranks higher than the fear of death for most people, but I cannot imagine why. I don't understand fear of rodents, or fear of insects. I know someone whose biggest fear is public humiliation; that barely makes my radar. I mean, everyone will face public humiliation many times in their lives. I certainly have, and I'm not dead yet. Sometimes, I'll watch someone struggling to avoid situations they think might be embarrassing, and I'll find myself barking, "Will it be fatal?" I mean, if the answer is "No," how bad can it be? One of the first things I tell my theater or speech students is, "Don't be afraid to look silly. You'll look worse trying to avoid it than you will doing anything else."

I manage to keep my fear reasonably in check. I swim, I go on boats, I once went in an actual submarine with viewing windows. Go, me.

On the other hand, darkness outdoors has never frightened me, ever, even filled with animal howls and bats. It's soothing, it's gorgeous. Indoor darkness, though, can be entirely unnerving, because it looks too close to being in a sunken ship. Not rational, but hey, there it is. So, although I recognize that my fear manifests itself in exaggerated ways - for instance, being unable to look at certain photos or film footage - I find it to be a perfectly reasonable fear.

My son wanted to go on a cruise for his high school graduation. We're only 4 hours drive from the Pacific, and he wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise. We chose one from Disney; we love anything Disney.

Then my husband found a transatlantic Disney cruise - 14 days for less money than the 7 day Alaskan cruise. Plus, we'd get to see Europe. Sounds like an easy choice, right?

And it was an easy choice, for the rest of my family. For me, not so much.

Ten of the fourteen days would be spent entirely at sea. Not just any sea, not my calm, placid Pacific, but THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN. That just sounded like days of seasickness followed by death, hours away from any help.

Before I do anything, I have to ask, "What could potentially go wrong? Could I live with that?" If the answer is "Yes," I do it. If it's "No," well, I don't. Any time I leave my house, I am aware that I could be hit by a car, contract a disease, be robbed - all sorts of stuff could happen. Things could happen in my house. I know the risk is there, and I accept it.

Don't try to tell me that that's the "wrong" way to look at things. I don't tell you how to live your life. You know how everyone always says, "Live each day like it's your last. Some day, it will be"? It's true. The last time I saw my dad, my mom, friends and relatives who have passed away, it was an ordinary day. Tomorrow, anyone I know might be gone. Tomorrow, I might be gone. The only guarantee is that I'm here now. None of us will leave here alive. Live like you were dying, my friend.

Death and I made our peace years ago. When he comes for me, I will greet him as an old friend.

I have, of course, put in requests with the Almighty. I would rather be shot to death in a burning building than have my death have anything to do with water. I have also requested that I not die in a flaming ball of shrapnel falling from 30,000 feet. The Good Lord is not obligated to honor these requests, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

(My husband, on the other hand, has to be almost positive that nothing bad could possibly happen, or he is paralyzed. If he considers what might go wrong, he will be unable to make any choice at all. He is therefore, from my perspective, frequently caught off guard and left floundering. "This shouldn't have happened!" he'll say. "How could this possibly have happened?" He has no plan of action at the ready, because he never considered the possibility that he would need it. I have contingency plans for my contingency plans.)

So, in order to sail off into the Atlantic Ocean for days on end, I had to say to myself, "Am I OK with four of my seven family members, including me, drowning at sea on this trip?" Answering "yes" to that is a difficult thing to achieve.

People tried to be helpful, but they didn't "get" it. They'd say things like, "Just stay indoors. Don't look at the water." I knew they meant well, but I wanted to say, "Oh, yeah - then I'll totally forget that it exists." I'm not a toddler. I know that things exist outside of my sight. Plus, if the ship sinks, being trapped indoors is far more terrifying than being on deck. During the emergency drill, they don't tell you, "Run into an interior space and you'll be fine." No, they teach you to go out on deck to the lifeboats. Being indoors does not mean being safe - in fact, it usually means the opposite.

"It's a cruise! It'll be fun!" they said. I know that; it doesn't help.

Think of it this way - what is your very worst fear? Your "Dear God, PLEASE don't let it be" fear, the one that will wake you up in a cold sweat. I'll use my daughter's as an example; hers is needles.

She avoids medical care until it's critical, and even then the worst part of any procedure is the needle. When she had surgery, they kept trying to talk to her about the procedure itself, how safe it was, how comfortable she would be, how necessary this was. She didn't care about any of that. She only cared that the anesthesia would be administered by IV, and that thought made her frantic and combative.

So, let's think about medical needles - how often will you need one? Vaccinations, surgery, blood tests, dental anesthesia - let's say a few minutes a year on average, for 30 to 60 seconds at a time. Most people will be exposed to them less than that. I had surgery this year, and enough blood drawn that my veins are scarring from it, and all told (including the surgery itself) it probably added up to 4 or 5 hours, over 365 days.

Now, imagine being stuck by needles every minute of every day for two solid weeks. That's 168 consecutive hours, or 10,080 consecutive minutes.

If you're afraid of public speaking, imagine being onstage with a microphone for 10,080 solid minutes.

That's the equivalent of what I was facing.

And I did it.

Yes. I did it, with a smile. And I had fun!

There were a few distressing moments, like walking out onto a lower deck at 10:30 at night during a storm, looking out at waves that seemed 10 to 12 feet high in the rain and blackness and saying, "If we have to get into the lifeboats tonight, I will die of a heart attack before I'm ever off the ship. I just thought you should know."

Yes, indeed, I had fun. Here's me, my husband and our host:

I warned people: I will now be insufferable. I am congratulating myself. I am very proud.

I don't expect people to congratulate me. In fact, I expect eyerolling: "Yes, yes, you handled a luxury experience. You. Are. Incredible. I am in awe." Still, I am feeling pretty bulletproof.

One of my kids noticed that I wasn't stressed at all while facing something that usually ties me in mental knots. I just smiled and said, "Fourteen days at sea."

Bring. It. On. I can handle anything. I am Chuck freaking Norris.

Water, Water Everywhere

We were watching previews in the movie theater in early 2012, and Bill Paxton's voice said, "Are you ready to go back to Titanic?" The lovely flute notes of "My Heart Will Go On" began, and the preview for James Cameron's blockbuster movie played.

At first, all I thought was, "Oh, they're rereleasing it." After all, rerelease of movies is becoming more commonplace. Then the screen said, "April 2012," and I laughed loudly. My family gave me that look that they give me so often – the one that says both, "Why are you so loud in movie theaters?" and "What is wrong with you?"

I nudged my husband. "April!"

"What?"

"They're rereleasing it in April!"

He did not find this funny, and could not imagine why I did.

After the movie, I explained what I thought was obvious. "She went down in April. This year it'll be 100 years since she sank." Even in a family of history geeks, I'm occasionally the geekiest.

I was a Titanic buff long before James Cameron gave us his story of Rose and Jack, long before Bob Ballard found her in 1985. I remember being about 10 and watching "In Search Of…" on TV. I loved "In Search Of…" I loved Leonard Nimoy's soothing narration, and I loved the show's theme of the odd and unexplained. "The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanation, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine," the voice-over told us every week. It was great fun. I remember clearly watching them try to figure out the sinking of the Titanic.

Most of the experts agreed, even decades later, that she shouldn't have sunk. They discussed the watertight compartments that would close "at the flick of a switch" and the fact that she should have been able to limp into port even damaged.

Mostly, they couldn't explain why she went down in only 2 ½ hours. There must have been something very heavy and undeclared in the cargo hold, some of the experts were sure. The iceberg damage did not explain her quick death.

Maybe she was smuggling munitions, they posited. Her sister ship would sink in the not too distant future after striking a German mine. Maybe she had massive, undeclared stores of arms in her hold. Maybe something ignited explosive charges on the ship.

I was deeply intrigued. The fact that, if pre WWI smuggling was taking place, it would be more likely to go from America to Britain instead of the other way around dampened this theory, but it was still fascinating. "We'll never know," they said. "She'll never be found."

Enter Bob Ballard, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, side scan sonar and a secret Cold War era mission to check out possible Soviet submarine activity. There she was, still beautiful over seven decades later, 2 ½ miles down.

Many of the questions were answered then, of course. No one had been able to imagine a circumstance that breached more than two or three of the "watertight compartments," plus they had not taken into account the fact that the doors did not go all the way to the top, allowing water to slop over from one compartment to the next. Impurities in the steel of her double hull meant that it became extremely brittle in cold water, snapping instead of bending. Her quick demise was due to flaws in the ship herself, not shadowy conspiracies.

My family cannot figure out why I am the family expert on shipwrecks. I own two beautiful silver pendants made from silver salvaged from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon whose wreck was discovered by the legendary Mel Fisher. I can tell you what I think happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald, who sank in Lake Superior so quickly that she didn't even call for help. Her last radio transmission, to the nearby Arthur M. Anderson, was, "We're holding our own" against the fierce storm.

I am not afraid of snakes or spiders. I honestly, sincerely thought that the ridiculous cliché of women screaming and leaping onto the furniture at the sight of a mouse was fiction, until I met such women.  I tell the kids in my theater class and on my debate team that fear of public speaking usually ranks higher than fear of death for most people, and we can all be proud that we can do something that terrifies others. One of my best friends is terrified of the bearded dragon that lives in my living room; I talk baby talk to her and sit with her on my chest while I watch TV. (She did poop on me once, but hey, I'm washable. So are my clothes.)

Water? That's a different story. Deep water frightens me. Dark water – even an inch of it – induces unreasoning panic. I cannot look at most photos of sunken ships, including the Titanic. I can't watch much deep water video. When I first saw "Jaws," the opening sequence of gliding over the ocean bottom frightened me more than the shark did. (The shark, let's face it, was dorky looking and did not behave factually.)

I once had to sleep with the lights on all night after watching a documentary on the Titanic. I was in my 30s. I did not see the movie in the theaters the first time, and I won't see it there this time. I could barely sit through the previews. Sitting in a dark room, looking at a huge screen and listening to surround sound? I'd have a heart attack. If I watch "Titanic" on the night of April 14, I will do it on a small screen in my brightly lit family room.

I've read both of Walter Lord's books about Titanic. I was about 22, reading "The Night Lives On" when we had guests for dinner, two missionaries from our church. Young men generally go on missions from the ages of 19 through 21, and in order to keep them from subsisting on ramen noodles and microwave popcorn, church members are encouraged to feed them dinner occasionally.

I told them about the book, and about slamming it shut and dropping it when I unwittingly turned the page and found color photos of the wreck. They started chatting about the ship with me and my husband, but I quickly dropped out of the conversation. Soon I was saying things like, "Can we change the subject?" and "I really don't want to talk about it," as they veered into speculation that was curling my toes. I shared my fear of water. They listened in an abstract way and kept on talking. Soon I was saying, "I need you to stop talking!"

They were saying things like, "Can you imagine being trapped on the ship? A lot of people were." Then came the final straw: "There were air pockets, you know, even after it went down. It's possible that some people were alive until the pressure became too great." "Yeah," said the other, "at pressure like that your head would literally explode."

I stood up and shrieked like a banshee. "STOP IT! STOP IT! I TOLD YOU THAT I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT! DO YOU WANT ME TO BE AWAKE ALL NIGHT? Do you want me to have to sleep with the lights on all week long?"

They turned and stared at me, all three of them, blinking as if they'd just realized that I was in the room, and wondering why I was so unreasonable.

I had a panic attack the first time I tried snorkeling, and the water was knee deep. The fear is getting more manageable as I get older. I love snorkeling, and have for years. 

         Three years ago, I went in an actual submarine to the bottom of the Pacific. We all watched out our windows as, yes, we glided by sunken ships. 

          We went so deep, over 100 feet, that all the color bleached out of everything and our own teeth glowed orange.

         It helped that the sub very much resembled the ride vehicle at Disneyland, but hey, riding in it is still a HUGE accomplishment. I am extraordinarily proud of it.

We've been through two museum exhibits designed to help you imagine what it was like on the Titanic.

           The first was in Long Beach aboard the Queen Mary. As you entered both exhibits, you were given a "ticket" with the identity of a passenger or crew member on it. At certain points, you find out what was happening to "you." As the exhibit progressed, they started playing creaking sounds, designed to sound like the doomed liner. I've gotta tell you, being aboard a ship, one that's bobbing ever so slightly, while you touch a simulated iceberg and listen to the creaking, is exceptionally creepy.

I started sending my family into the rooms ahead of me. "Come back and tell me if there's anything I have to avoid." They always came back and said, "It's fine," until we neared the end of the exhibit.

The doorway showed a narrow room, almost like a hallway, that turned to the right. There was a wall, about waist high, on the right hand side. "Go check it out," I told my son. I've never been there, but I hear that in the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, exhibits that might be too disturbing for young children are behind waist high walls. The room gave me the willies.

He came back with wide eyes. "I can't even tell you about it. Just close your eyes and I'll guide you through."

Closing my eyes was too awful; it was pitch dark, with the ship moving and the creaking, groaning sounds on the tape getting louder. My blood pressure went up. "I'll look straight down at the ground, OK?"

"OK. Just don't look up."

I took hold of his arm. He led me through the smallish room, and I stood staring down at the entrance to the next one while he checked the new room. "There's some pictures and TVs you have to avoid, OK?"

They had artifacts actually brought up from the ship, displayed in plexiglass cases.

          Unfortunately for me, above them all hung either still photos or video screens – unnecessarily large ones, I thought – showing where on (or near) the wreck they were found. I had to hurry through that room.

          There was one last room, where you checked to see if "you" survived the sinking or not.

            Luckily, beyond that was the gift shop, which opened onto the walkway leading off the ship. It was nice and bright and full of fresh air.

After we were safely off the ship, my family told me what was in the room with the partition. On the side of the Queen Mary you could see a small bump-out near the stern. It looked kind of like a little black box attached to the side of the ship. What had looked like walking into a hallway on the ship was actually walking from the ship, out through this little bump-out. If I had looked up, I would have been looking at the side of the Queen Mary, just at the water line. Looking down, over the side of the waist high wall, there was a clear view of her propellers, lit from underneath. "I'm not afraid of water or anything, and it creeped me out," my husband said. My kids all echoed the sentiment. "It was CREEPY!"

Had they told me that while I was still on the ship, I would have come unglued.

Heart attack averted. Thank you, Son. I am ridiculously grateful for his handling of the situation.

When we got our current National Geographic magazine, I had my daughter look through it and tell me the pages I had to avoid. "How did you ever go on a cruise ship, Mom?" she wanted to know.

Well. Yes. I think everyone who's ever been on a cruise ship thinks about the Titanic. The very fact that there are enough lifeboats for all, and that the ship will not leave port until you have participated in a lifeboat drill are a legacy of Titanic. Part of what grips us about the loss of life so long ago is the fact that there weren't enough boats for all, and that there was no set procedure for evacuating the ship. Anyone who reads the inquest testimony that a Titanic crew member turned back third class passengers because they were not normally allowed on the decks with the lifeboats cringes, I think.

"Most of them froze to death, not drowned. No one freezes to death in the Bahamas," I told her. It's not the whole story, but it's true. I'm also proud of going on a cruise, but the truth is, I didn't worry. I had a great time and slept like a rock.

"What about the one in Italy? They drowned."

Thank YOU, Child of Mine, for bringing that up. As if I haven't had unpleasant and unkind thoughts running through my head ever since that fiasco. Don't get me started on the carelessness that caused that mess.

Next year, for his high school graduation trip, my son wants to go on an Alaskan cruise. We're looking up prices and sailing dates, and I'm very much looking forward to it. I hope my mind doesn't decide to play a horror show inside my head while I'm on that ship, where I might indeed freeze if it sank.

Right now, I'm reading a new book, one that my oldest daughter sent to me from her school's book fair. I'm loving it. I'll probably assign it to my seventh grader when I'm done, as a homeschool assignment.  It's called, "Titanic: Voices from the Disaster."

There's only two pages I can't look at.

These Rooms Aren't Very Restful...

I've been on vacation; this means I've spent a lot of time in public restrooms. This also means that I've also been thinking a lot about public restrooms.

Recently, someone said something to me about being worried that a woman may have set her purse on a restroom floor, then onto a counter or table. The thing that struck me was the fear of the floor. I couldn't help thinking - let's see, how to say this without being unnecessarily graphic? My first, overiding thought was that it's silly to fear the floor. If you're a germaphobe, and the thought of all public, well trodden floors gives you the willies, OK. If not, well, if a person is of an age or ability level where keeping all the necessary excretions in the toilet is an issue, they'll have a capable helper with them. The floor shouldn't be any dirtier than the floor at a Neiman-Marcus.

This discussion, of course, does not include women who hover over the seat, creating what Dave Barry called "a wee wee waterpark" because they're afraid the seat will be dirty. That's a separate discussion entirely. In brief: Ladies! You fear a dirty seat because you create dirty seats (and floors)! Sit down, for crying out loud! Save the rest of us the aggravation!

I didn't say anything at the time I heard the floor comment, though. I've learned to gauge, with some accuracy, situations that will cause people to view me as though I just landed from another (wierder) planet. (Better late than never; I'm only 45.) I then have to weigh the importance of the situation before deciding whether or not the ensuing fracas will be worth stating my opinion. Restrooms are not that high on my scale. I said nothing.

I kept thinking about it, though. Was it just a standard germaphobic reaction to our increasingly hand sanitizer saturated culture? Was I missing some important piece of information? I didn't know, and I wasn't going to ask.

Then I saw something that turned on the little light bulb in my head.

I was at our weekly homeschool co-op, in the restroom. It was between classes, so naturally it was a bit crowded. Some of the girls, aged about 3 to 11, were changing into leotards and tights for dance class.

A mother came in to find her daughter, who was about eight years old. The daughter was already in the stall, which seemed to cause the mom a bit more concern than I thought was necessary. How closely does an 8 year old need their dressing tasks supervised?

A minute or so passed, and the mom again called in to the daughter. She got the response, "I'm getting dressed!" "Well, you need to get out of there!" the mom replied. I thought she was concerned about emptying up a stall so that someone else could use it. We still had about 10 minutes left of passing time, so it wasn't critical, but being considerate is advisable.

It only took another 15 or 20 seconds before Mom's cool really started to crack. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Getting dressed!"

"YOU NEED TO COME OUT OF THERE. Right now. It's filthy. How close are you?"

"I dunno." (Typical kid answer.)

Mom handled it for another 10 seconds or so, and then she just lost it. "GET OUT! GET OUT! RIGHT NOW! I'M COMING IN!" She began to shake the door. "OPEN UP! OPEN UP RIGHT NOW!" The daughter opened the door, which actually made Mom more agitated. The girl had tights in her hand, with her other clothes already off. Naturally, as she leaned down to put the tights over her foot, they dragged on the floor. Her mother pulled her, stark naked and deeply embarrassed, out of the stall, howling instructions like, "DON'T TOUCH THAT! IT'S FILTHY!" The fact that the tights were dragging on the floor almost undid Mom, as did the daughter reaching out to steady herself on the wall. Her regular clothes were discarded on the floor; I thought for a moment that her mother would advise burning them. "THAT'S FILTHY!"

Into this crowded room this naked child was thrust, clearly wishing the floor would open and swallow her. Her mother ushered her, still naked, into the room before the one with the stalls and sinks. It's one of those "mother's lounge" type rooms, with a comfy couch, a counter with tissues and art in soothing pastels. "Get dressed IN HERE," her mother insisted, heedless of the fact that the door to this room opened out into a public hallway, and the poor kid was feeling exposed enough.

Ah ha! I thought. Here is someone who's read those ridiculous studies by the scientist who named his son after the e.coli virus, the guy who memorably told us all, two decades or so ago, that when you flush the toilet, microscopic particles of feces are flung into the air. This woman clearly felt that being in the stall, or even in the room with the stalls, was the equivalent of rolling on the floor of an uncleaned dog kennel.

I'm not sure if I would - or should - have said anything if she was a close friend. I probably would have appalled her, so it's best that I keep quiet.

But, for the record, here's what I think. Relax, already!

Even the author of these studies will tell you that there's no documentable cases of harm caused by flush molecules. We are all clear on "microscopic," right? At the microscopic level, you would be horrified by the stuff you breathe, ingest and wash in every day. Most of us are clearly better off not knowing.

We have microscopic bugs, for lack of a better word, living in our eyelashes. The most fastidious housekeeper still has dust mites, and their feces, in the home.

The FDA has an actual law about how many insect parts can be in your canned and bottled food. (Let's ignore, for a moment, the fact that most of the globe views insects as food themselves, an inexpensive, easily sustainable, low fat, high protein meal or snack, while we Americans view them as one tiny step above feces.)

I'm not advocating that we lick the inside of stalls, just that we have a little perspective. Simply being in a public restroom is not hazardous. If it was, good heavens, imagine the widespread pestilence. In its absence, we really have to calm down.

And honestly, if you're worried about invisible vapor, wouldn't a blast of it be emitted into the lounge room every time the door between them opened?

Which brings me back to the whole purse thing: again, why fixate on the floor? If you're freaked out about flush vapor, you'll get it all over your purse if you hang it on the purse hook or set it on the little purse shelf, not just if you set it on the floor. If that unglues you, I can't help you, but if it doesn't, and floors in general don't freak you out, again, calm down.

Once, in Old Town San Diego, I stood in line for the one women's stall within a 30 minute walk. Naturally, the line was excruciatingly long - why does this rarely happen to men? Anyway, the two people directly in front of me were a girl of about 12 and a woman probably in her 30s. After the girl walked away, the woman entered the single occupancy restroom, and almost ran back out. After waiting in line for approximately 25 minutes, she now told me, with disgust, "I wouldn't even go in there. She didn't even flush. I can't use it. I'm going to go find another restroom." She indicated that she expected everyone in line to come with her.

At that point, my bladder could not have taken the walk across the square searching for another restroom (and hoping it didn't have a line), but I don't think I would have done anything differently if the need had been less urgent. I walked into the restroom, flushed, and used it.

I know that the woman in front of me was probably thinking that if the girl was a non-flusher, her hygeine was so bad that it would adversely affect anyone who came after her. My theory is that if the toilet needs flushed, you flush it. It takes a fraction of a second and a single finger. It's not a huge deal. It doesn't matter if you do it, or the person before you does it, or if the custodian does it. How many times, in your own house, do your family members walk away without flushing? It's not the Apocalypse. I often flush unflushed toilets in public restrooms. My theory on seat drizzle is pretty much the same. Wipe it off, set down a seat protector and do your thing.

I know. I do. I can tell you the exact names of friends and relatives who are now making the same sound the Wicked Witch of the West made when Dorothy hit her with the bucket of water. They're getting ready to tell me that I'll get irreversible Nether Region Rot and die a horrible death, that my family will have to spoonfeed me, but from a distance so that they don't catch anything dire.

If those things do freak you out, you and I will never see eye to eye, and it's in everyone's best interest that we not discuss it. Ever.

But now, if you're still with me, I have to share my two favorite public restroom stories. One involves the mens room and one, the ladies: I believe in equality.

My friend Mike is phobic about two things: homosexuals and public restrooms. Normally, it's eccentric, and amusing in a "watch him squirm" kind of way. However, Mike is an actor and a wonderful storyteller, so his story had me in absolute tears of laughter when he related it.

Years ago, Mike was Christmas shopping near his home. He was at the mall when he realized that he would not make it home before he simply HAD to relieve himself. He considered every alternative, and finally chose the most expensive store in the mall, figuring that its restrooms would be better maintained and altogether "safer." Even this part of the story is funny when you hear Mike tell it. "I wondered how I'd explain to my mom that I couldn't fly home for Christmas if I was arrested for indecent exposure after pulling over on the way home to go in a bush."

He gritted his teeth and walked into the restroom and was relieved to see no one else. He chose a stall and sat down to conduct his business. Trying to deal with his nervousness, he noticed something written on the back of the door. I'm going to repeat it here, as it's necessary to the story, but

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

it's a bit graphic. You might want to shield yourself or small children at this point.

Written on the back of the stall door was, "For a blow job, tap your foot." Below that was a day and time. The day, Mike realized in horror, was the current date. The time was ten minutes previous.

In Mike's words, "My sphincter muscles instantly froze, then contracted. Every muscle in my body froze. There was no way I was going to be able to go." He looked down under the wall of the stall and discovered that in the next stall, he could see a pair of shoes, shoes that were on the feet of another restroom occupant.

There is no way possible to do this story justice, especially from here on out, unless you are Mike. Most of the rest of the story is best told with the accompanying visuals. Mike told how he leapt up, nearly falling over as he yanked up his pants. "I was terrified to take a single step, lest he think I was tapping my foot, but I had to get out of there immediately." Now, imagine someone like Steve Martin or Jim Carrey, a master of physical comedy. Only they could recreate the image of Mike demonstrating how he ran out of the bathroom, arms flailing in the air, without ever lifting either of his feet off the floor. It's like watching a demented, posessed skier. The physical needs that had needed tending so urgently just a moment before disappeared as he lurched, terrified, out of the restroom and fled the mall.

Mike feels that this incident ably demonstrates why his fear of both gay men and public restrooms are totally justified. I think it's fabulous entertainment.

Years after hearing Mike's story, I came home from an evening out and told my husband, "I have finally discovered why women bring a friend with them when they go to the restroom." I never understood that. Why do you need company? Do you need help? A bodyguard? Someone to sacrifice to the ghosts/attackers/rift in the space/time continuum? Are you unable to be alone, ever? Then, thanks to my friend Jami, I was witness to why, exactly, a lady might want a friend with her.

Jami's another actor. We were out with the cast of the show she was in at the time. I'd ushered the performance in order to see it for free. Frequently, after a show, the cast, crew and friends will go out - often to a bar, since they're open late. Since I don't drink and occasions like this are the only time I'm ever in bars, I haven't observed much stereotypical bar behavior. We arrive in a pack, we leave in a pack - I don't generally see anyone flirting or getting hit on. For some reason, though, that night more than one man approached our table to hit on Jami.

They weren't lewd about it, and backed down easily, but it still unnerved her. Jami's like me, married since she was barely out of her teens, so she wasn't looking to be hit on.

She's also tiny - about 5'2" or 5'3" and barely breaking three digits in weight. After she'd had two drinks, she mentioned that she'd had nothing to eat that day. It was 11 or so at night, and the mommy in me came out and I scolded her. "I ordered food. It'll be here soon," she said. She did recognize that she was already feeling lightheaded, which was not a good sign. Jami's sweet and talented, but can be a bit loopy, as well as naive. Intoxication did not seem like a good plan. (It never is.)

When she had to use the restroom, she asked me to go with her. She provided a reason, though, unlike the usual "come with me" request. One of the men who'd hit on her was still staring at her, as were two other men directly between us and the restroom. She wanted someone to run blocker for her. This I can do - I don't even care if I hurt someone's feelings. She took my hand and dragged me through the room as though I was a shield or bodyguard, which, I suppose, I was.

The restroom was small, with two stalls and a single sink. I waited while Jami went into a stall. She didn't take very long to accomplish her purposes, but then she couldn't figure out how to get out of the stall. Those drinks on an empty stomach had addled her brain.

At first, she was quiet and calm. "How do you open this thing?" she wondered out loud. It had one of those bars that you grip between your index finger and thumb and turn.

"You just take ahold of the latch and turn it. I forget which way. If one way doesn't work, try the other way." I honestly thought that would be the end of it. I, too, am sometimes tragically naive.

"It doesn't work! It won't open!" Jami began to stress. I couldn't tell if she was actually turning the knob, just that the door was rattling as she became more frantic. "It won't work! I can't get out!"

I moved closer and closer to the door as I instructed in my best mommy voice, "TURN it. You have to turn it. Take hold and turn it." Poor Jami was becoming shrill and terrified.

I tried to take hold of the little circle on my side of the door that was the back of the latch. Any parent has had to turn the knob from the outside before, in order to get their kid out, but I don't have long nails, so it was difficult. It wasn't working. By now, Jami was beating on the door and crying.

Then, she gave up dealing with the latch at all. She gripped the top of the door and began to shake it fiercely, screaming. Occasionally, the shrieking would form a word - "HELP!" - but a lot of it was just howls of anguish as she attemped to beat the door off its hinges. I knew what had to happen.

"JAMI. Stand back. Go all the way to the back of the stall. I'm coming in."

The wailing subsided to sniffles, and she let go of the top of the door. "All the way to the back wall, OK, Jami? I need room."

WARNING!!!! WARNING!!!! WARNING!!!!!!

If you are a germaphobe, if contact with public surfaces freaks you out, if anything I have said so far makes your skin crawl, DO NOT read any further. Trust me. I don't want your sleepless nights on my conscience.

I lay down on the floor and started to Army crawl under the stall door.

Keep in mind, I am not small. I'm a good 6 inches taller than Jami and twice her weight. I had a C cup bra in high school, and things have only gotten bigger since then. I was not sure I'd even fit under the stall door.

Behind me, I heard the restroom door open when I was about halfway under. I was now trying not to hit my head on the toilet, while the newcomer was greeted by the sight of my large bottom and legs hanging out from under the door. Whoever she was, whatever she needed to do, whatever kinkiness she imagined was happening, she chose not to enter the room's empty stall, said nothing and quietly closed the door as she left.

I finally wiggled under enough to stand up, turn around and unlatch the door. Jami was exultant. "You saved me! You saved me!" She flung her arms around me and hugged with all her might. Then she bolted out of the stall, as though the door might slam shut at any second and once again imprison her.

"You saved me," she repeated, reverently this time. "I would still be trapped if it weren't for you. I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here." We both washed up at the single sink (me, all the way up my arms) and she hugged me again. "I don't know what I would have done without you. I'd still be trapped," she repeated.

Later, when she sobered up a bit, Jami asked me not to tell anyone. "It's so embarrassing." The next night at the show, though (I was ushering all weekend) she said, "I told my husband. And everybody else. You can tell people, the people who don't already know." Then, a bit indignantly, "They laughed at me! I was stuck."

Maybe it's best that I don't ask you to accompany me to public restrooms, isn't it?