October 15th, 2009
#873 – Separate
To get to the bathroom where I work I go down a hallway, turn left, the first door is the women’s bathroom and the second door I come to is the men’s. I do that same pattern many times a day. Go down the hallway, turn left and go in the second door. After working there for years it becomes an unconscious thing. Go down the hallway, turn left and go in the second door. I can keep my active mind on something more interesting. Go down the hallway, turn left and go in the second door. This becomes a problem when I approached this same destination from the opposite side of the building for the first time. Go down the hallway, turn right and go in the second door… wait…
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October 15th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Y’know, a guy did that while I was leaving the bathroom the other day. He walked in, saw me, made a really interesting face, and scurried out. And of course, this was in the UW Business School building, where the best ‘n brightest students gather…
October 15th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Was on a navy base once and went into the toilet. Should have remembered they call the men’s the heads!
Silliest thing is that it was my second visit – previous time I had remembered.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Maybe biff should wear glasses
Fortunately I haven’t made any such mistake.
(I do wear glasses, this might just mean something!)
(hopefully more than that I can’t see well without them….)
October 15th, 2009 at 1:04 am
Amy, are you a ’sconsinite?
But yeah, I’ve actually never made that mistake. Go me for being able to determine which gender belongs in a labelled room.
Woo.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:12 am
once i was busily planning out the table setup for a banquet that evening in my mind while on the way to the restroom, apparently i was too preoccupied and wandered into the men’s room, there was a guy in there, and i flipped out, preparing to yell at him for being in the women’s room when i noticed the urinals… yeah, i was so red i could have been used for a stop light, haha
October 15th, 2009 at 1:26 am
I made that mistake at a restaurant once. I had just closed the door to the stall when a group of women came in. I couldn’t just walk out of a stall and go by them, so I had to hide and wait until they left. Of course, when I found the men’s bathroom it looked like a leaky little closet compared to the nice women’s bathroom. Well, I’m still glad Biff got caught and not me.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:58 am
At my school the toilets are inconveniently placed at the far sides of the hallway and the classroom I spend my time most at is exactly at the side where the female toilets are… so I just do my business there. There aren’t even signs saying which is which and not all men’s rooms there are equipped with urinals so if I ever get caught.. the idiots should have made things clearer.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:33 am
The heads at the place I work switch sides on opposite sides of the building centerline. On one side, the man’s is to the left, and on the otherside, it’s on the right. Gotta keep your eyes peeled for the signs on the door… If you’re habitually on one side of the building, a visit to the other side of the building could be your undoing!
October 15th, 2009 at 2:49 am
I believe it happened to me once in high school… Yeah, I was going down the hallway, turned right towards the bathrooms, and without thinking just ran into the first door. Men’s room is the second door. Thank god there was no one in there.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Oh no!
Whoops, Biff!
That said, I know my younger brother did that once by mistake. He came back so reeeeeed…..his fault for being too occupied with his cell phone.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:33 am
Sung to the tune of “Great Tidings of Comfort and Joy”:
The restroom door said ‘gentlemen’ so I just walked inside;
I took two steps and realized I’d been taken for a ride.
I heard high voices, turned and found the place was occupied by two nuns, three old ladies, and a nurse–What could be worse?
Than two nuns, three old ladies and a nurse.
The restroom door said ‘Gentlemen’ it must have been a gag. As soon as I walked in there I ran into some old hag.
She sprayed me with a can of mace and snapped me with her bag.
I could tell this just wouldn’t be my day–what can I say? This just wasn’t turning out to be my day.
The restroom door said ‘Gentlemen’ and I would like to find
The crummy little creep who had the nerve to switch the sign.
‘Cause I’ve got two black eyes and one high heel up my behind.
Now I can’t sit with comfort and joy, boy oh boy!
Now I’ll never sit with comfort and joy….”
An aquaintence of mind found that song somewhere and got it for me as part of a collection of funny Christmas songs. Thought I’d share.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:42 am
@ ZeoViolet: LOL! love the song.
Isn’t this Biff’s first run in with the law?
October 15th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Probably have to change now after suffering from wet pants?
October 15th, 2009 at 8:45 am
I had a friend once that had a senor moment at the young age of 23. He went to the bathroom to relieve himself. While taking care of business he started to second guess himself as to whether he went into the women’s or the men’s room.
So then paranoia starts to set in and he’s really worrying that he went into the wrong room. Finally it hits him like a ton of bricks: he was standing at a urinal.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:58 am
For an extra complication, try a theme restaurant or other establishment that insists on giving their restrooms cutesy names instead of just labeling them “Men” and “Women”. I can usually figure it out, but then bad jokes and wordplay are specialties of mine. It always confuses my mother to no end.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Did that once at Summerfest. (The angle I approached from made the sign appear to be over the left side of a wide entry – it was actually to the left of a divider blocking my sight of my door) I was not drunk, but perhaps owing to the nature of crowds, I was looking for the urinals a good few seconds before I realized what happened.
As far as I could tell, none of the many women noticed me either.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Once I walked into the ladies room at the movies. I didn’t notice until I was all the way in and couldn’t find a urinal. The worst part is I looked at the sign and thought, “Why does the dude have a triangle on his waist. That’s odd.”
October 15th, 2009 at 10:29 am
This also reminds me of a true story, which led to a joke. I was making a delivery in a warehouse and asked where the bathroom was. The guy gave me his pass key, which I would need to get out of the warehouse, *and* back in. I thought this was strange because every form of security I’ve encountered before was only one-way.
The joke: (riddle?)
Q:What’s the difference between The Mafia and an ordinary corporation?
A: In The Mafia, you also need a key to get *out* of the executive washroom.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Always act like you meant to do it, guys. Just go into the womens bathroom, buy a tampon and go into a stall. Give it about ten seconds and start screaming and run out.
Then come back here and let me know how it went.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Well one time I really needed to use a stall and predictably failed to check the sign when rushing in. While I was at a Chinese restaurant with some friends, and I probably would have been fine if the other person who walked into the washroom didn’t happen to be a girl from my table, and recognized my shoes, and asked if it was me in there… Well I didn’t get made fun off fo too long after… Embarassing but of no consequence.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I personally don’t get the whole separate bathroom thing I mean its not like we have separate bathrooms for guys and girls in our homes..
Ive used the guys bathroom before…
not one with the stalls granted but like a normal style bathroom at a non-chain restaurant theres no way I was gonna wait in the line for the girls
October 15th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I was 8 and walked into the men’s room. One guy was using the urinal and another was washing his hands. I said “Hi” then proceeded to a stall, not yet processing what I just saw. So I did my business, washed my hands and proceeded to leave. When I opened the door to exit the restroom, I was met by my horrified mother who had been contemplating whether to rush in after me or not. Her face was so red…but it didn’t bother me at all because I was 8. Pretty funny in hindsight…I wonder if I embarassed the gentleman using the urinal. :-/
October 15th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Sco3tt, love it XD
Solar, they have separate rooms because they don’t want the men messing up the lady’s room.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
@ AOEU: I worked in restaurants for a few years. And among other things was included cleaning out the restrooms after closing. In spite of all the hype otherwise, the ladies room was usually more of a disgusting mess. Some of the ladies needed to lift the lid and didn’t. I don’t know how they did what they did and I don’t want to. The only way to consider the bathrooms different was just on aesthetics. The ladies just had prettier wallpaper.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
It’s funny, but at first I thought that for some reason, somebody had set a trap in the sinks which handcuffed Biff and then glued him to the wall. That didn’t make much sense, but I figured, “Hey, it’s Book of Biff. Sense has no place here.” Then I figured it out.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
It happened to me a few years ago. In one of the local shopping malls the men’s restroom (why do they call them that anyway??? I’ve never found them particularly *restful* places to be…) was on the left side of a short hall and the ladies’ was on the right. At least it was in the Fall when I took my last trip there. After a rather hard Winter, during which I was unable to go to said mall, I went and; you guessed it; made the usual left turn — and ran smack into a near-hysterical lady demanding to know where I thought I was going. Turns out some @#$%ing “genius” decided to switch their locations *AND* put smaller signs up to make things more interesting. GRRRRRR…
October 15th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
One time in high school, I really had to go, so I ran into the bathroom one time after school, while waiting for my mom to get there. While sitting on the toilet, it hit me that something was odd. Noticing the floral wallpaper, I’m like, “Oh crap… This is the women’s room.” Well, it’s not like I could just stop and go in the other one right then and there, so I decided to just lock the door, hoping no one else would come in, and if they did come in, they wouldn’t see me. So, I finished. As I was about to creep out of the stall, I heard a knock on the door. Then, a guy said, “Is anyone in here?” (This was one of the cleaning staff.) Of course, I wasn’t about to say, “Yes,” because even if I disguised my voice well enough to fool him, he’d probably still be waiting outside for me to come out. So, I simply pulled my legs up and crouched on the toilet, hoping he’d go away. He came in, grabbed the trash can, and dumped it out into his big bag. I was watching him through a reflection on the edge of the door. Unfortunately, reflections work the other way, too, and he happened to see me. He said nothing, left, and, I made my way out. Well, before my mom could even get there, one of my teachers stopped me and asked what I was doing in there. I told the truth, and was released with skepticism, but it was still embarrassing and scary to be under the gun like that.
Well, fast forward a few years to the time to me working at McDonald’s. I was told to clean the bathrooms. I cleaned the men’s room, then went to do the women’s room. I propped open the door with the “Wet Floor” sign to discourage any women from using it. I cleaned the sink and the mirror, then went to mopping the floor. One of my female coworkers then came in. I make a motion to leave, and she says, “No. Don’t worry. I trust you,” and proceeds into the stall. I continue mopping, she does her business, comes out, washes her hands, and leaves, with me still mopping, and a slightly stunned expression.
ZeoViolet: The artist for that is named Bob Rivers and it’s from the album “Twisted Christmas”
October 15th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Thanks. I wondered about that. She just strung a bunch of songs together and mailed it to me on a CD; so I don’t know where most of them came from.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I usually can find my way out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom even in a pitch-black room
October 16th, 2009 at 3:10 am
In Taiwan, where I lived for 11 years, one bathroom says 男 and the other says 女. Come to think of it, while traveling in Scotland, I found a bathroom with the Gaelic words for man and woman… And had to stand around waiting until someone else came along and I could see which sex used which one!
Important thing to know when you’re in a new country…
October 16th, 2009 at 4:26 am
One of the guys who works for Xbox and goes by the gamertag Major Nelson, had a funny story how he ended up in the women’s instead of the men due to someone reversing the signs.
True story. He talks about on his podcast: http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2009/10/04/show-334-tokyo-game-nba-2k10-and-left-4-dead-s-crash-course.aspx Start from 58:20 and listen to the end.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
When I was little, I always wanted to use a urninal, even though I am a girl. I thought it was really cool .__.
I went in the guys room many times, just to show off though. Never actually used it, washed my hands at most.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
He might have also thought “Hey, there’s a candy machine in here too!” That isn’t right, sorry…
November 17th, 2009 at 10:03 am
@Thane of Ermal “Eh? Chaneil gaidhlig agaibh?”
@ZeoViolet I sang that for some of my Madrigal friends once; can you believe they had never heard it before?!
Still can’t believe Biff wlaked into the Police Ladies’ room.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 am
Hah, once I followed my guy friend to the men’s restroom in a hotel – just for fun. We were fixing our hair etc. (’cause he has to look ’super sexy’, and my hair’s always messy) when another guy comes in. He takes one look at me, disregarding the urinals, and goes, “Whoops, thought this was the guy’s.”
December 31st, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I was on my way out of the restroom at a restaurant, and there was a lady freshening up at the sink. I gave her a reassuring smile and a nod, like I didn’t mind she was in the wrong restroom. She smiled back and kept on with her makeup… but when I left, I saw a sign that said “Men” on the bathroom door on the other side of the hall. I guess there’s something to be said for the confidence you get from not knowing what the @#$% you’re doing…
January 2nd, 2010 at 4:19 pm
When I was nine, my school didn’t have urinals, so you can’t tell the difference, except for the signs outside, which I disregarded. I walked into an unlocked stall, only to find that it was … er … “occupied.” It just took one look for me to immediatly turn around and walk away. The funny thing is, me and that girl were good friends after that in the next grade…
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I’ve done this on three separate occasions at three different locations in my life. ALL THREE were noticed, but none resulted in my arrest, thankfully.
July 27th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Holy crap, its twice as bad for girls!
Think: men have urinals, women dont…
get the picture?