*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission.
What would you do if you asked someone if you could use their bathroom and came face to face not with a toilet but a cat litter box?
I remember it like it was yesterday. I'd just had a large cup of coffee when my boyfriend suggested we hop in his buddy's car and go visit one of their friends, a woman I'd never met. I usually don't like to venture far from my home base once I've had that much coffee, for reasons that would soon become apparent.
We got into the backseat of my boyfriend's friend's car, and the only thing I could think about was where the next available bathroom might be. We arrived at our destination, and their mutual friend welcomed us into her home.
I sat uneasily on the woman's sofa. I don't remember much of their conversation, especially since I wasn't included in it.
I just sat and squirmed and tried to get up the nerve to ask to use a stranger's bathroom. She seemed nice enough, despite not having said a single word to me since we arrived. Nonetheless, I waited until I was bursting at the seams before shyly inquiring whether I could use the loo.
Our gracious host gave me the go-ahead along with directions on where to turn right, left, and then right again to find the right room. I wished she'd led me there myself because after opening doors to linen closets and bedrooms on my way to the bathroom, I was running out of time.
I finally found the correct room. It's a good thing because I was beginning to sweat from the effort of controlling my full bladder. I burst into the room and found, not a toilet, but a cat litter box.
I hadn't even seen a cat.
Dismayed, I stood and stared at the cat litter box just inside the bathroom door. I was desperate enough to give it a go. If this is what passes for this woman's bathroom, I thought, I'll just have to make do.
I was desperate enough to use it. I wasn't happy about it, but I was resigned to making it work.
There was another problem, however, that slowed me down. The bathroom door didn't have a lock on it, and the last thing I wanted was someone accidentally walking into the bathroom to find me awkwardly using a cat litter box.
I blocked off the door as best as I could using a nearby clothes hamper and a small garbage pail. Then I turned around to give myself one last pep talk before getting down to brass tacks.
That's when I saw it. The bathroom was oddly u-shaped and around the corner, I could just barely see the edge of the toilet peering from behind a partition.
I've never felt so relieved.
Lest you think I'm foolish for so easily accepting that a woman I'd never met before had provided a cat litter box for her guests in lieu of indoor plumbing, let me tell you something. My boyfriend had the exact same thought when he got up to use the bathroom upon my return.
"Whoa," he said, returning from the bathroom/cat litter box room. "I almost used the cat litter box when I couldn't find the toilet. I didn't even know you had a cat."
What would you have done? Comments are welcome.
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