The University of Nebraska in Omaha has, like all colleges, ID cards. These ID cards are used to purchase things around campus from bookstore items to parking and food. Even the vending machines, copiers and printers in the library take these convenient ID cards. Because they are so handy and useful around campus many of us carry them in a pocket so we don't have to dig through our bags to whip it out every few minutes. My friend, like myself, carries hers in the back pocket of her jeans. Normally this is a safe, easy to access location. Normally.
After hours of studying and downing coffee in order to get that last assignment finished just before class it is inevitable that nature will call. My friend took a break from the latest Molecular Biology assignment to answer that call.
In the process of dropping her jeans while poised just right over the porcelain throne her ID card, unexpectedly wiggled halfway out of her pocket. It is not until she is standing and pulling up her jeans in one swift motion that she hears an unexpected "plop" and splash of water.
Like any woman in a strange toilet who's heard stories of "creatures" coming up through the plumbing she quickly turns, backing into the door of the stall. Her mind calms as she realizes she's three stories up in a large building. Convinced that it wasn't a creature she peers into the toilet. Her face is there, smiling up at her through the lemonade colored water. Her ID card has gone for a swim.
It would be quite a hassle to lose the ID card yet no one in their right mind would reach into the bowl and retrieve it now. Perhaps if the water were "clean". She decides to flush and await cleaner waters before retrieving the card and thoroughly washing with soap.
She takes a breath and flushes. Her jaw drops in astonishment as her smiling face is whisked away down the hole she would have sworn wasn't big enough. In a daze of amazement she returns to her papers sitting across from me and says, "Apparently the toilets are pay toilets now." After telling me the story I remarked that I hope she didn't get charged each time someone flushed.
So would it have been worth it to brave the "dirty" water to retrieve the card? I didn't ask because honestly I would have been reluctant to retrieve it from "clean" water at my home not to mention a public toilet. I didn't want to know her answer.
1 comment:
That's funny, I probably would have gone fishing though. I enjoyed that story.
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