By: Dani Ryan
Posted on http://www.cloudywithachanceofwine.com
May 2003
I’ve been dreaming a lot about summer lately, which made me remember all of the trips we did when I was a kid ...
... there was that road trip we took back in 1985 ...
Now one thing you need to know about Asia in the 1980s is that very few public establishments housed western toilets. In fact, I think we only ever found them at posh hotels and MacDonald’s, but even then, the toilet seats were always covered in footprints from some jerk trying to squat on them.
And since my disabled sister is physically unable to use a squat toilet, and my mother and I were afraid of falling in, the words, “I need to pee” were not taken lightly when we were out of the house.
But with 9 hours of driving ahead of us, and 2 very full bladders, we needed to stop ...
We were so desperate to pee by this point that none of us really paid attention as we climbed out of the car, but boy were we ever in for the shock of our lives when we opened the door to that restroom.
Do you remember the scene in Slumdog Millionaire, where the kid goes into the outhouse and jumps through the make-shift toilet and into a pile of poop? Well, it wasn’t quite that bad, but that visual will help set the scene.
What was once a beautiful, white hotel bathroom was now dingy, dark, and grey. Only a single light bulb lit the place, but we could still see questionable things splattered all over every surface ... And the water coming out of the faucet was light brown.
But there was 1 western toilet, and, as we knew it could be our only option for hours, we knew we had to make it work.
I remember watching my poor mother frantically look around for something, ANYTHING, she could use to clean the toilet before her precious girls sat down to pee on it. But she was out of luck, and was forced to give us a premature lesson on how to hover over a public toilet seat.
Which only goes so far when one of your children is disabled, and the other is only 7-years-old.
But we did our best, and when the horrible ordeal was over ... we headed back to the car while my mother begged us not to put our hands near our mouths.
Once we were safely buckled back into our seats, my Dad took one look at us, turned the car around, and drove us home, where my mother promptly bathed us, our clothes, and the inside of our car in bleach.
That was the last road trip we ever took as a family ...
Read full article published by www.cloudywithachanceofwine.
Posted on http://www.cloudywithachanceofwine.com
May 2003
I’ve been dreaming a lot about summer lately, which made me remember all of the trips we did when I was a kid ...
... there was that road trip we took back in 1985 ...
Now one thing you need to know about Asia in the 1980s is that very few public establishments housed western toilets. In fact, I think we only ever found them at posh hotels and MacDonald’s, but even then, the toilet seats were always covered in footprints from some jerk trying to squat on them.
And since my disabled sister is physically unable to use a squat toilet, and my mother and I were afraid of falling in, the words, “I need to pee” were not taken lightly when we were out of the house.
But with 9 hours of driving ahead of us, and 2 very full bladders, we needed to stop ...
We were so desperate to pee by this point that none of us really paid attention as we climbed out of the car, but boy were we ever in for the shock of our lives when we opened the door to that restroom.
Do you remember the scene in Slumdog Millionaire, where the kid goes into the outhouse and jumps through the make-shift toilet and into a pile of poop? Well, it wasn’t quite that bad, but that visual will help set the scene.
What was once a beautiful, white hotel bathroom was now dingy, dark, and grey. Only a single light bulb lit the place, but we could still see questionable things splattered all over every surface ... And the water coming out of the faucet was light brown.
But there was 1 western toilet, and, as we knew it could be our only option for hours, we knew we had to make it work.
I remember watching my poor mother frantically look around for something, ANYTHING, she could use to clean the toilet before her precious girls sat down to pee on it. But she was out of luck, and was forced to give us a premature lesson on how to hover over a public toilet seat.
Which only goes so far when one of your children is disabled, and the other is only 7-years-old.
But we did our best, and when the horrible ordeal was over ... we headed back to the car while my mother begged us not to put our hands near our mouths.
Once we were safely buckled back into our seats, my Dad took one look at us, turned the car around, and drove us home, where my mother promptly bathed us, our clothes, and the inside of our car in bleach.
That was the last road trip we ever took as a family ...
Read full article published by www.cloudywithachanceofwine.