Lexine
04-07-2010, 03:48 PM
Every time my stylist friend Elizabeth and I hang out, we usually wind up at In-And-Out Burger late at night and grab our usual meals. Elizabeth usually orders a protein style hamburger, which is basically a hamburger with lettuce for the bun instead of bread, and I usually order a #2 spread-only - which is essentially a burger with Thousand Island dressing, a white bun, and cheese and comes with a drink and fries. Some of you are probably reading this and thinking, "Wow, deja vu! Sounds like Alex already talked about this before!" but this time the story's slightly different.
Last night, April 6th, I was supposed to watch "How To Train Your Dragon" in 3D but instead got side-tracked when the girl I'm dating and I spent about an hour on the phone talking about how I should drive over an hour to her place to watch a movie pretty late at night. After finally convincing her that it'd be too late to watch any movie at that late of a time and saying "Good night," I discovered that I had missed all the local showtimes of the movie and I wasn't going to make any one of them. Somehow, I felt an urge to get out of the apartment.
I called Elizabeth and asked her what she was doing. Typically when she and I meet, it's filled with a lot of purpose… we meet because I help her with technical and computer stuff for her business, or we go shopping for my outfits, or we talk about personal stuff about our lives. Tonight, I just wanted to hang out with the sole purpose of wearing the outfit that she and I assembled this past Monday… a cute ensemble inspired by J-pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki.
It's also typical for us then, regardless of what purpose we meet, to eat dinner at this one particular In-And-Out Burger near her neighborhood. This particular In-And-Out Burger has unofficially become our test bed in wearing my girl/androgyne outfits. Tonight was going to be Test #2.
So Elizabeth and I got out of my car upon arriving at the In-And-Out branch and I remarked about the fact that I can no longer leave my car without grabbing my purse. My purse isn't really too feminine… it's just a man bag with my makeup, cellphone, camera, car keys, and wallet, but its color and design is effective enough so that I can pass as either gender. Elizabeth had this uncertain look on her face, not getting why I made the comment, so I added, "…because practically, my entire bathroom, life, and everything is in here!" This past Saturday, I had experienced what it feels like to be a girl swimming through her purse trying to find either a stick of gum, hand sanitizer, a wallet, or even her vibrating cellphone amidst all the makeup, pieces of paper, or whatever else has found itself in there.
After ordering our usual orders, Elizabeth picked a corner spot in the restaurant and started pulling out her laptop. She wanted me to help her burn some songs on a CD on her Macbook, but it turned futile because her computer's battery was completely dead. I then made a comment that I needed to go to the restroom and, for some reason, I asked her if this look made me pass as a girl. As I asked this question, a couple of cops came into the restaurant and proceeded to order.
Elizabeth then said, "Well, there's cops over there..."
To which I replied, "Crap. So where should I go? Men's? Or Women's? This jacket is too feminine to be male! So it makes sense to go to the Women's restroom..."
Elizabeth shrugged. After a while she finally said, "Confidence, Alex. You look cute in your outfit! Do what you think is comfortable for you."
I felt like Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth, being forced to pick between two doors: One leads to her kidnapped brother, and the other led to certain death.
I encountered a similar problem in Disneyland as well. Maybe a higher power was playing a cruel joke on me, just like this one webcomic I wrote a while back, but it was opposites day at Disneyland. There were lines in the Men's restroom but none in the Women's restroom. I had posed the dilemma to a couple of my new friends and they were both not sure what to tell me. Tonight, I'm facing the dilemma with the possibility that I might get caught by the police and dragged to the precinct if I failed to pass… or I can do what I've done before by playing it safe and running to the Men's restroom. Either way, one's bladder isn't conducive to reasoning so I had to make a decision.
I could feel Elizabeth's eyes leering at me as I approached the restrooms… Men on the left, Women on the right. The Women's restroom door faced the Men's directly across. The cops sat down at a seat that, if they'd look, would have a clear vantage point of the Men's restroom door. I clasped my hands around the restroom door knob, turned it, and proceeded inside - only to find the Women's restroom completely vacant.
"YES!" I thought to myself. A perfect opportunity to use the restroom! There were two stalls: a smaller stall and a big stall for the handicapped. Since the entire room was empty, I opened the door to the handicap stall and sat and did my business.
I suddenly heard the Women's restroom door open and heard an attempt to open the stall door next to me. The walls around my stall shook as the stall door next door refused to open! As it turns out, the handicap stall was the only stall available for use! I suddenly started freaking out… "What am I going to do?! They're going to stare in my face and I'll totally get caught!" I heard two voices outside my stall, talking about how the other stall was closed. Then another voice joined them. I had to get out. Panic.
I then opened the door slightly, then crept out between the group of women and let out a very soft and quiet, "Excuse me!" and reached for the door. I then tried to calmly walk to Elizabeth and, upon getting to the table, told her what happened.
"You freaked out," she replied.
"Well yes! How else should I react when three women were in there waiting for my one stall and the possibility of any of them shouting, alarming the two cops outside eating their delicious burgers?!"
"…and you didn't even wash your hands!" she added.
"Well… I, umm… I'll just go to the Men's restroom and wash my hands there!"
"Alex! You can't keep going back and forth between restrooms! People will definitely notice you if you do that!"
"Well, okay, I'll wait until all three women are out of the restroom and I'll run in there and wash my hands, how's that? Meanwhile since I haven't washed why don't you go pick up our order when they call us?"
"Alright!" Elizabeth said, now with a smile on her face.
The glass pane behind Elizabeth was at a perfect angle… I could see the people going in and out of the Women's restroom door and I counted patiently as…
One…
Two…
Three…
…Women left the restroom. I then walked towards the Women's restroom - head held high this time - and clasped my hands around the door knob again. I then washed my hands - WITH SOAP - as another woman came into the restroom, washed her hands quickly, then left. As I reached for the restroom door, the door swung open and my hands caught it, opening it for the woman getting in, and stepped out of the door and started walking towards Elizabeth, who now has both of our usual meals on the table.
What's the moral of the story? I'm not sure if there really is a moral… but if there's any one thing that I learned is that even some women don't use soap when they wash their hands in the Women's restroom.
Last night, April 6th, I was supposed to watch "How To Train Your Dragon" in 3D but instead got side-tracked when the girl I'm dating and I spent about an hour on the phone talking about how I should drive over an hour to her place to watch a movie pretty late at night. After finally convincing her that it'd be too late to watch any movie at that late of a time and saying "Good night," I discovered that I had missed all the local showtimes of the movie and I wasn't going to make any one of them. Somehow, I felt an urge to get out of the apartment.
I called Elizabeth and asked her what she was doing. Typically when she and I meet, it's filled with a lot of purpose… we meet because I help her with technical and computer stuff for her business, or we go shopping for my outfits, or we talk about personal stuff about our lives. Tonight, I just wanted to hang out with the sole purpose of wearing the outfit that she and I assembled this past Monday… a cute ensemble inspired by J-pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki.
It's also typical for us then, regardless of what purpose we meet, to eat dinner at this one particular In-And-Out Burger near her neighborhood. This particular In-And-Out Burger has unofficially become our test bed in wearing my girl/androgyne outfits. Tonight was going to be Test #2.
So Elizabeth and I got out of my car upon arriving at the In-And-Out branch and I remarked about the fact that I can no longer leave my car without grabbing my purse. My purse isn't really too feminine… it's just a man bag with my makeup, cellphone, camera, car keys, and wallet, but its color and design is effective enough so that I can pass as either gender. Elizabeth had this uncertain look on her face, not getting why I made the comment, so I added, "…because practically, my entire bathroom, life, and everything is in here!" This past Saturday, I had experienced what it feels like to be a girl swimming through her purse trying to find either a stick of gum, hand sanitizer, a wallet, or even her vibrating cellphone amidst all the makeup, pieces of paper, or whatever else has found itself in there.
After ordering our usual orders, Elizabeth picked a corner spot in the restaurant and started pulling out her laptop. She wanted me to help her burn some songs on a CD on her Macbook, but it turned futile because her computer's battery was completely dead. I then made a comment that I needed to go to the restroom and, for some reason, I asked her if this look made me pass as a girl. As I asked this question, a couple of cops came into the restaurant and proceeded to order.
Elizabeth then said, "Well, there's cops over there..."
To which I replied, "Crap. So where should I go? Men's? Or Women's? This jacket is too feminine to be male! So it makes sense to go to the Women's restroom..."
Elizabeth shrugged. After a while she finally said, "Confidence, Alex. You look cute in your outfit! Do what you think is comfortable for you."
I felt like Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth, being forced to pick between two doors: One leads to her kidnapped brother, and the other led to certain death.
I encountered a similar problem in Disneyland as well. Maybe a higher power was playing a cruel joke on me, just like this one webcomic I wrote a while back, but it was opposites day at Disneyland. There were lines in the Men's restroom but none in the Women's restroom. I had posed the dilemma to a couple of my new friends and they were both not sure what to tell me. Tonight, I'm facing the dilemma with the possibility that I might get caught by the police and dragged to the precinct if I failed to pass… or I can do what I've done before by playing it safe and running to the Men's restroom. Either way, one's bladder isn't conducive to reasoning so I had to make a decision.
I could feel Elizabeth's eyes leering at me as I approached the restrooms… Men on the left, Women on the right. The Women's restroom door faced the Men's directly across. The cops sat down at a seat that, if they'd look, would have a clear vantage point of the Men's restroom door. I clasped my hands around the restroom door knob, turned it, and proceeded inside - only to find the Women's restroom completely vacant.
"YES!" I thought to myself. A perfect opportunity to use the restroom! There were two stalls: a smaller stall and a big stall for the handicapped. Since the entire room was empty, I opened the door to the handicap stall and sat and did my business.
I suddenly heard the Women's restroom door open and heard an attempt to open the stall door next to me. The walls around my stall shook as the stall door next door refused to open! As it turns out, the handicap stall was the only stall available for use! I suddenly started freaking out… "What am I going to do?! They're going to stare in my face and I'll totally get caught!" I heard two voices outside my stall, talking about how the other stall was closed. Then another voice joined them. I had to get out. Panic.
I then opened the door slightly, then crept out between the group of women and let out a very soft and quiet, "Excuse me!" and reached for the door. I then tried to calmly walk to Elizabeth and, upon getting to the table, told her what happened.
"You freaked out," she replied.
"Well yes! How else should I react when three women were in there waiting for my one stall and the possibility of any of them shouting, alarming the two cops outside eating their delicious burgers?!"
"…and you didn't even wash your hands!" she added.
"Well… I, umm… I'll just go to the Men's restroom and wash my hands there!"
"Alex! You can't keep going back and forth between restrooms! People will definitely notice you if you do that!"
"Well, okay, I'll wait until all three women are out of the restroom and I'll run in there and wash my hands, how's that? Meanwhile since I haven't washed why don't you go pick up our order when they call us?"
"Alright!" Elizabeth said, now with a smile on her face.
The glass pane behind Elizabeth was at a perfect angle… I could see the people going in and out of the Women's restroom door and I counted patiently as…
One…
Two…
Three…
…Women left the restroom. I then walked towards the Women's restroom - head held high this time - and clasped my hands around the door knob again. I then washed my hands - WITH SOAP - as another woman came into the restroom, washed her hands quickly, then left. As I reached for the restroom door, the door swung open and my hands caught it, opening it for the woman getting in, and stepped out of the door and started walking towards Elizabeth, who now has both of our usual meals on the table.
What's the moral of the story? I'm not sure if there really is a moral… but if there's any one thing that I learned is that even some women don't use soap when they wash their hands in the Women's restroom.