Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Locked Out

All righty folks, it’s time to take another trip to the awkward vaults… It was my junior year of college and my family decided to take a cruise for the winter break holiday.

Every morning my dad, mom and sister would wake up at seven in the morning to reserve a chair by the pool. When you’re in college and extremely hip like me, the last thing you want to do is wake up early. So I would usually waddle down to the pool at around 10 or 10:30am.

One day I woke up around my usual time and decided to take a shower. I’m not exactly sure why I took a shower if I was going to the pool, but let’s not focus on my strange idiosyncrasies. That’s for my psychiatrist to figure out and I’m still waiting for him to get back to me.

After I completed my shower I tried to open the bathroom door, but for some strange reason it wouldn’t open. I apparently locked the bathroom door before my shower because the rate of young, gawky, Jewish men getting attacked in cruise ship bathrooms was a serious issue in the early 2000’s. Fortunately, George W., was able to put a stop to it during his presidency and none of you youngsters have to worry about it.

So after I unlocked the door and it wouldn’t open, I tried to yank it open a bit more forcefully. Still nothing… I then got the bright idea to try to ram the door open with my shoulder. After a few attempts and remembering that I’m a wuss, it was time to think of a different strategy.  

If you have never been in a cruise ship bathroom, they are extremely small and probably just a little bit bigger than an airplane bathroom. In addition, the bathroom was heavily insulated so I could barely hear anything that was happening in the main room. So every 15 minutes or so, I would have to yell out to see if anybody was in the room. The one person who could be there was my sister, since we were sharing the room. 

During this time, my family was chill-laxing by the pool drinking some pina coladas. As 11am rolled around, my mom began to get suspicious.

“Should we check on Jon to see if he’s okay,” my mom said.

My dad never understood why I had to sleep in and thought I was wasting his money by doing so. So he responded angrily, “If he wants to sleep, let him sleep.”

Meanwhile, I’m now staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. It had been well over an hour and I began to lose it a little bit, like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away." I argued with myself and blamed Jonno in the mirror for getting me in this situation. I never have apologized to Jonno in the mirror, so now would probably be a good time to say I’m sorry for taking it out on you. It was horribly insensitive of me.
 
At least Tom Hanks had Wilson to make out with.


Another hour goes by of me just sitting on the toilet in my towel. I believe at this point I had been stuck in the bathroom for two and a half hours. I then hear a noise, so I yell out for help. 

“Kim, are you there?” I say desperately.

“Yeah, where are you?” she says.

“I’m stuck in the bathroom,” I reply. “The door won’t open.”   

Being the heroic and helpful person my sister is, she then proceeded to fall on the bed and laugh hysterically. I then realized she was the absolute worst person to save me in this situation.

After about five minutes of non-stop laughing, she tries to open the bathroom door and of course can’t get it open. She tracks down some housekeeping guy and he can’t get it open. I then begin to wonder if I’ll ever get out the bathroom and if I will ever see the light of day again. Fortunately, the housekeeping guy found a maintenance person and he was able to set me free.

As I walked out of the bathroom in my towel, I was expecting to see a great amount of support and sympathy for what I had just endured. I was hoping for a reaction similar to how a soldier gets freed by a terrorist or when baby Jessica was rescued from the well in the late 80's. I was also expecting to be swarmed by the media, with cameras flashing and reporters asking me questions. 

Instead... The housekeeping guy, maintenance person and my sister were chuckling at me. I was not shocked to see my sister laugh, but I was surprised to see the cruise ship staff enjoying my misery.

Apparently, no matter what language you speak, seeing a pasty, hairy male in a towel is universally funny for all cultures. Who knows? Maybe the sight of me in a towel is so powerful it can bring world peace.

H.A.K.A.S 

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