Life in Your World

We travel with you this week, and what a trip it is. My first thought is to remember how a year ago we took a trip to Alaska. This day reminded of yet one more reason why I loved the place: SPACE! Maybe the bathroom of our rustic cabin sloped sharply downhill as you walked toward the shower. But look at the unexpected perks, like being able to learn everything you could ever want know about the care and maintenance of a water heater or the furnace, as long as you made the labels on these nearby sentinels your bathroom reading material. And yes, when you stepped out of the stall and went back into the cabin proper, you washed up at a sink that was on a plain wood shelf with a moose-print curtain, a curtain that you had to open and a shelf you had to crawl under if you wanted to use the air conditioner, which was a window unit (where's the window supposed to be here?) embedded there (and who needs the air conditioner much in Alaska anyway?) Even with all this to complain about, I hardly complained, for in Alaska there is space to move. Space to breathe.

Now in your world of travel, we travel places very different from Alaska in these respects. Here, when we stopped at a typical fast food joint and I visited the bathroom, I had a far less acceptable experience. True, everything was there to accommodate the travelers needs, but this hardly met my minimum requirements for such personal needs. I don't think I'm that finicky, really; for instance, I've grown accustomed to having to perform basic yoga posturing, just to reach the toilet paper holder in these places, but in this "rest"room, things only went from bad to worse. I made the mistake of trying to exit the bathroom stall with the commode between me and the door, trapping myself behind the door. Assessing the likelihood of being able to wedge myself on the other side of the stool and still open the door, and realizing that this plan was not more likely to work, I chose to vault over the bowl and scoot out. Thankfully, this worked. Relieved to have escaped, I went to wash my hands. But the sink was so shallow that the water ricocheted up from it, drenching my shirt. Startled, I jerked back, slamming my elbow into the empty paper towel holder. (Empty because now we use a hot air dryer which means there is no need to make room for something so space-consuming as a trash can to house the used paper towels.) I couldn't see how bad the damage really was to my blouse because the mirror was so narrow it only give me a view of myself from forehead to chin. I finally stamped my foot--the only physical display of frustration space allowed in this tiny room--and went back out into the parking lot, wedging my way between cars parked, by necessity, so close that their rear view mirrors completely blocked a pedestrian's passage. Yes, my love, I have a hearty respect for some of the less noticeable hardships in your world. (smile)