There are moments in my life when I can feel that some seraph is watching over me. For instance, there was a time in college when I went to bed in a state of drunkenness. If my dad is reading this, it was the only time I got drunk in college, I swear! OK, I cannot pinky swear on it. Alright, maybe that time in the boys dorm. Do you work for the CIA or what? Never during a school night. Stop looking at me that way! OK, never on a Wednesday night because that’s when I always seemed to have a night class. Can we get back to me slumbering after over indulging on the libations? At some point in the middle of the night, I started to vomit. This is usually a good way to purge the toxic concoction brewing in my stomach, but I was lying on my back and started choking. This is where my angelic guidance councilor decided that it was best for me to puke on my roommate in the bunk bed below instead of dying and gave me enough sense to turn my head. This is good because, I know my brothers, and they would have had “Died like Mama Cass” written on my tombstone. Now my angel thinks his big favor for me is done and spends his time in playing poker; so he can be an extra in the next Ocean’s 11 movie.
Many people have a vision of what their guardian angel looks like. Maybe their angel is Clarence, the warm and gentle soul from “It’s a Wonderful Life” or the beautiful cherub looking Roma Downey in “Touched by an Angel”. Nope. Mine happens to look like Dwayne Schneider from “Once Day at a Time”. Life would be fabulous if it was Tom Selleck in a tool belt, but no, I get a greasy haired weasel in a denim vest and white t-shirt. Go figure.
Flash forward ten years…
My company was getting ready to broadcast the CEO’s end of the year speech. So, what they do is set up TVs in designated areas and broadcast out to us minions. This is a great “Big Brother” idea except that you have to get there early to get a seat. So, I did just that. Well, it is morning, and I had just finished my usual glass of milk and cup of hot tea with my breakfast. I knew I wouldn’t last an hour, so I quickly ran down a hall to where I thought I had seen a drinking fountain. Which for any one that works in an office building knows where there is a drinking fountain up against the wall there are toilets within a 15 feet radius.
I dash madly into the bathroom and darted into the nearest stall. Sweet Jesus, relief from a full bladder is like the sweet sirens from heaven have descended upon you and are singing quietly in your ear. You are calm, quiet and smiling as your once distended bladder regains its original shape and size and the pain slowly dissipates. It was during this calm bliss that I noticed something. A pair of black dress shoes walked past my stall. Not just any black dress shoes mind you, a pair of black wing tips in about size women’s 11. Now in the 1990’s, I was a big fan of wearing Doc Martins with dresses. If it was good enough for Demi Moore and Meg Ryan with their prissy tomboy look, it was good enough for me. I admired the shoes for a full 2 seconds, and then something occurred to me. These shoes didn’t come with skinny clean shaven legs; they came with dress socks and professionally tailored dress slacks in a dark navy with a very light pin strip. OK, that is taking the tomboy look a little too far for me, but to each their own. If you want to be a woman and dress like Donald Trump; who am I to question your fashion sense. Just be warned, you will have your face blurred out in the Glamour magazines “Fashion Does and Don’ts” section. Fascinated with this new fashion trend, I literally watched the wing tips not walk into the stall next to me but stroll up to the far wall, and then the unspeakable happened the owner of these fine dress shoes began urinating.
At that moment, panic began to slowly seep into my body. I was ready to live my life out from within the bathroom stall and re-enact Howard Hughes last years at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. As the wing tips finished their business and walked back across the floor towards me, I followed the foot steps with my eyes. The dress shoes paused for a moment as the owner pulled open the main bathroom door. I was a stall door away from being busted when I noticed something. I looked down at my shoes and was for the first time horrified by what I saw. These were fabulous red patent leather loafers with these cute tassels on them which I wore with a khaki skirt and a red blouse. I glanced back and forth between my adorable red flats and the large black dress shoes which stood before me. Slowly, I lifted my feet off the ground and began to re-enact the bathroom scene from “Witness” with that boy with those ginormous ears. The wing tips quietly proceeded out of the bathroom. In the middle of this act of desperation, I realized that I was doing a crouching tiger stance by placing my feet up to the toilet seat and hugging my legs. I was so horrified by my predicament, I couldn’t even finish going to the bathroom.
This is one of those moments in your life when you pray to God. And being a really bad Catholic, I gave God about 5 seconds. Nothing! Quietly, I whispered “Schneider?” Noda! Panic set in, and I started praying to any god or goddess that would listen. Zeus, Hades (I’m not picky when I am in a bind.), or any other god who had stepped foot on Mount Olympus. Zero from the incestuous deity crowd. So, I quickly jumped from Christianity, through Paganism, right to Druidism. I started praying to the bathroom stall god (It’s one of those lesser known gods.), so I decided to move up the food chain, as it where, to the bathroom door god. Then like a republican in a closet at the Watergate hotel, I quietly listened to hear if any more men’s shoes had entered. None. Any hallway noises to indicate movement towards the bathroom door? Silence. While still remaining crouched on the toilet, I slowly opened the stall door. Then like a gazelle, I sprung off of the toilet, out of the stall and opened the door to the hallway. I quickly looked both ways down the corridor, no one in sight, and sprinted down the hall like I was a Frenchman during the Nazi invasion. When I got to the end of the hallway, I turned to see if anyone had seen me. Schneider was shooting dice up against the wall with Roma Downey. He gave me the thumbs up.
