The fear of using public restrooms.
It was a long weekend. Memorial day weekend if I remember correctly. I was stationed at the USN Sonar school in San Diego, California. We has a twenty day duty rotation (I only had to stay on base for guard duty once every 20 days). My friend Jimmy and I had Monday off from classes, so we decided to head down to Mexico.
Tijuana was old hat by this time and we were itching for something new. There was a popular beer in the area called Hussongs. The commercials spoke of a cantina by the same name in Ensenada, Mexico, with a crazy parrot that flew around buzzing the customers heads. Ensenada was only about a 45 minute ride south of Tijuana and we jumped at the chance to check it out.
At the time, I had a Dodge conversion van with a couch that folded down into a bed in the back and an ice box. We took a couple of bottles of water, a change of clothes and a toothbrush. We expected to get a room at the Holiday Inn when we got there. If not we could sleep in the van.
It was over two hours when we arrived in Ensenada. Due to the holiday weekend, there was heavy traffic at the border crossing. Also the road to Ensenada was a toll road and we had to stop every few miles to pay the toll.
When we arrived in Ensenada there was tons of traffic. Surprising since there was so little traffic on the toll road. Upon entering town I found out two unpleasant things. First, there was a cruise ship in town for a couple of days and all the motel rooms were booked. Second, Jimmy needed to take a crap and had been holding it for the past two hours, waiting to use the bathroom in our motel room.
Near the outskirts of town I found an open parking spot in front of a local bar. We went inside, ordered a beer and I went to the men's room. Jimmy was sitting at a table in the front looking uncomfortable. We were the only Americans in the place. After a couple of minutes the regulars went back to their drinks.
I asked my buddy about using the men's room and he told me he would wait. He said the men's was probably dirty and full of germs, refusing to use it even after I told him it was clean. He wouldn't budge. We drank up and resumed our search for a motel room.
Stuck in traffic again and about to give up on getting a room for the night, we started to think about going. I didn't want to since we had driven all the way down here. At least we could find Hussong's and have a drink and maybe Jimmy's need for relief, would overcome his public bathroom phobia.
When we found Hussong's Cantina, a kid on a bicycle stopped to ask if we needed a parking spot. I said, "What we really need is a motel room."
He told me to follow him and took off, fearlessly weaving through traffic. He stopped at the next intersection, waving me on. We turned left went a few streets over and turned right. He stopped and told me to wait there. He ran inside the building. When he came back out, he told me to pull through the arches on my right and park. It was a parking lot with about a slots slots.
We went inside and the boy explained that he had told the lady at the front desk we were OK to rent a room to. Seems we weren't the first american servicemen to stay here. Behind the reception desk was a round dark skinned woman with suspicious eyes. She told us that due to the holiday weekend the rooms were at a premium price.
I clutched my wallet trying to remember how much money I had and said, " One night."
Now I'll be honest. I was expecting her to say something north of one hundred for the night plus tax. She looked down at the counter top and said, "Twelve dollars american for the night."
I thought I had misunderstood as she gave me a stern look and said, "Twelve dollars american."
Now it was my turn to be suspicious. I asked if we could see the room first. For twelve dollars a night I thought the room would covered with water stains from the leaky roof and we would be sharing a bed with several other guests. Or worse rats and roaches.
We were very pleasantly surprised. There were two twin beds with different color bed spreads but they were clean and neatly made up. There was a carafe with two galasses in the room and a five gallon bottle water dispenser in the hall. The only thing wrong was the shower curtain was missing. No doubt stolen or torn down by a previous guest. Navy or Marine?
Jimmy asked for a different room, one with a shower curtain. We paid the woman and gave a two dollar tip to the street kid who had brought us here. He took off on his bike to tell his friends. We went up to the room.
I fumbled with the keys for a few minutes before finally unlocking and opening the door. Jimmy made a beeline for the bathroom, trying to hold his butt cheeks together. Relief was just moments away.
Of all the sounds I expected to hear coming from the bathroom, weeping was not one of them.
"This place is plenty clean? There's a nice clean shower curtain. So what's the problem?" I asked.
"The toilet seat."
"What's wrong with the toilet seat?"
"It's missing."
They could hear me laughing all the way back in San Diego.
Until tomorrow,
Ken
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