Now I Can Only Appreciate the Sonic-esque Ice

Oh nothing much happened on the way to the farm on Friday except that I was LITERALLY TRAUMATIZED in the bathroom at Buc-ee's.

I should have known something would go wrong.

It was just weird, you know.

The Chief vehemently dislikes Buc-ee's.

The people.  The cars.

The fact that people consider it a vacation spot.

The Beaver... So it was just strange that he decided to stop.

But I was so delighted at the prospect of THE ICE and THE BATHROOMS and perhaps some BEAVER NUGGETS, that I disregarded the warning signals flashing at warp speed from my brain.

This is NOT SURPRISINGLY the first time I have successfully ignored them.

The Chief and I went in, and I headed straight to the bathroom.  Now, I'm sorry, but one of the best things about Buc-ee's is the bathroom.  It's clean, there are lots of individual stalls so you never have to wait, and EACH STALL HAS A FULL-LENGTH DOOR WITH A LOCK THAT EVEN HAS A LITTLE GREEN (VACANT) AND RED (OCCUPIED) INDICATOR.

If you've ever been in a typical convenience store restroom you know why a person appreciates these things.  There's no huge open space at the bottom of the door through which the toddler in the adjacent stall with his Mom can climb and join you.  There's no dangling pieces of a long-missing lock, there is no three inch gap in the door that you have to try to shield with your purse.

So as you would expect, I was anticipating another good bathroom experience.

I looked down the row until I found the first CLEARLY GREEN AND VACANT STALL.  I turned the VERY UNLOCKED DOOR HANDLE.

And then quite frankly I nearly wet myself which, of course, would just eliminate the need for the whole visit to this house of horror in the first place.

It was occupied.  By  a girl.  I'm guessing a mid-teen.  And I had opened the door at a bad time.  And that's just all I'm gonna say about it.

And while slamming the door closed, and muttering about being "SO, SO SORRY", and how "THE DOOR SAID VACANT!" and "I PROMISE IT WAS GREEN!" and stammering all over myself, I ducked as quickly as my almost paralyzed limbs would shuffle me to the next VACANT STALL where I collapsed into a heap and vowed to never again be tempted by the beaver.

And just a minute or so later, I hear the occupant of the other stall leave and go toward the sinks and such, and THEN I HEAR THIS... "Mom, you won't believe!  Some creepy lady actually opened the door on me when I was using the bathroom!!"

And I think I died.

Yes.  It's possible that I may have simply quit breathing when Mom replied "Well Honey, I've told you there are some weird people in this world and you have to be very careful".

And I wanted to scream at the VERY TOP OF MY LUNGS "But the door was Green!  And Unlocked!'

But mostly I wanted to shout "I AM SO NOT CREEPY!!".

And can I just tell you that my very first plan was just to stay there in that stall on the floor in the fetal position forever.  Or at least until Buc-ee's closed for the day and some kind of sanitation worker called the police when they found me there.

But then I decided, that knowing Buc-ee, he never closes.


The Chief would have eventually gotten tired of waiting for me and just gone on, I'm sure.  It wouldn't have been the first time he simply forgot that I was with him and left without me. It would be the third or fourth time.

So honestly, I stayed in there LIKE FOREVER and was absolutely sure when I came out there would be police and wanted posters and all featuring my face.

And when I finally made the decision that those people were probably gone, and that I probably needed to be hooked up to an IV of some sort, I dragged my still-shaken self out of that stall, made eye contact with ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, and went straight to our vehicle.

Seriously, I kept my head down the whole time I stopped at the cash register to buy this:

Because, well, when one is TRAUMATIZED, one needs CHOCOLATE.

And then I couldn't discuss the whole awful incident with The Chief because his Dad was with us and I didn't want to traumatize him TOO with all the talk of  'bathrooms' and 'creepy' and stuff.
That would have just been too weird.

It is so much easier just to share the incident with the entire INTERNET and all...


So I just decided to hang on to my chocolate purchase until such time that I voluntarily checked myself into some type of NATIONALLY RENOWNED CENTER FOR EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL HEALING.

Or at least until I told y'all.


Thanks for listening.


I hope you don't think I'm creepy.

Lu