The Floater

I've been camping out at Sterling library for a little over a week now. Or maybe it's been two weeks; I'm losing track of time. In any case, I've been "working on my thesis", sequestered away from the comforts of home so that I will be forced to do nothing but type the words that are my ticket out of New Haven. I've looked forward to these moments since September 2006, when I discovered the synonymity between the words "Yale" and "slow death". But now I'm squandering them, these precious, precious minutes. Like a belligerent toddler refusing to be spoonfed her mashed-broccoli dinner, I find myself throwing inner tantrums when I lower myself into one of the green pleather armchairs in my "lair" to work. But because I am 24, not 2, I cannot fling my computer at the wall like a spoonful of green goo, satisfied that I will no longer be expected to finish that which I came here to do. Alas.

The stress is taking its toll. I barely sleep anymore, because when I sleep my dreams are filled with the unfinished paragraphs, running sentences and incoherent thoughts that I am certain fill the pages of my yet-uncompleted first draft. When I do manage to get those coveted forty winks, the first thing I think about when I wake up is my thesis. When I'm splashing water on my recently-acquired crow's feet, I'm thinking about my thesis. On my morning walk to campus, I no longer worry that someone will mistake my temporary, music-induced deafness for rudeness and beat me; I worry about how to write the next 80 pages of my thesis.

Because I have $3.52 in my bank account, I have no choice but to enforce austerity measures on myself (much like the ones IBB implemented during the SAP era that I'm writing about - again, I come back to this godawful thesis), so I'm down to one meal a day. The armed robbers who call themselves restaurant owners in New Haven think that everybody is George Bush's child, so they charge us accordingly for our meals. Therefore, I have taken to buying my singular meal from the Roomba Burrito man's cart: chicken burrito, no beans, extra hot sauce, extra cabbage. $4.50 at SOM, $5 at Elm Street. The Roomba Burrito man has saved me from slow, sure death by starvation. I don't eat my burrito; I inhale my burrito. I eat in seclusion so I can attack my burrito the way a pig attacks his trough of slop, and to avoid any backlash for being uncivilized. The meal is always over too soon, and I always look at the newly-shredded foil paper that once tenderly wrapped it with a mixture of satisfaction and remorse.

But man shall not live by burrito alone, and all this stress on my system has thrown a wrench in the works, if you catch my drift. I'm usually as regular as clockwork; you could set your watch by me. Seriously. I go every day, sometimes twice a day. But now...now things have changed. For one, I'm no longer at home at the time I normally go. Now I'm at Sterling. And secondly, nothing about my recent life is agreeing with me or my large intestine. So now, when I have to go, I not only have to deal with the fact that things aren't flowing as smoothly as they did in the past, but I also have to contend with the lack of privacy that comes with having to go in a public restroom. When you're the kind of person that needs a 20ft. radius of peace and quiet to handle your business comfortably, this presents yet another problem. A very unwelcome one, when it was going to be hard enough to complete this morning ritual already without the added complication of performance anxiety.

But I can't not go, so every day I trudge to the public restroom, grumpy and pouting, and lay down my layers of toilet paper systematically. Two long double layers for each lateral side, two shorter ones for the front and back, and then another layer just in case; carefully woven so that there won't be any slippage or subsequent risk of my tushy touching the seat. If I've forgotten to bring reading material, I read my old text messages - they serve the same purpose. On a "normal" day, I'm out of there in about eight minutes (more, if I have to coax myself back into action after someone has ungraciously stormed into the restroom and thrown things in reverse). These days, I leave feeling a bit defeated, but realizing that there was nothing more I could have done short of reaching in and yanking it all out. But today was different. Today, I dropped...a floater.

It was a rare morning. There were few women in the library today, it seemed, or perhaps today they decided to go at home for a change. So I had it all to myself: the sterile stalls, the silent sinks. All was peaceful. So maybe it was the fact that I could finally simulate the enviroment I am accustomed to or maybe my body is finally adjusting to its new routine, but things went well today. I experienced a cleansing like none that I've experienced in recent times. It made the whole world seem more promising: I would finish Chapter 3 today, I would stumble upon a stray $5 note so I could buy milk and finally have a steamy bowl of sticky oatmeal. I even hummed a little ditty and swayed my hips as I zipped up my jeans. When I raised my foot to press down the flusher (I never touch anything in a public restroom with my bare hands), I did it with a bit of a flourish. I tore a bit of toilet paper off that I could use to unlatch the door and turned round to double-check that all was well. That was when I saw it: the one that didn't go away.

I was horrified. I have never in my life deposited a floater; I had come to accept that my body just didn't make them. And yet, here I was, faced with the hard evidence of my poor nutritional habits - literally. I had started to panic when I realized that there was no one in the restroom with me. Nobody knew except me what was happening in stall #3. I took a deep, calming breath and raised my foot again, applied pressure. The water gushed out like a small tsunami; I was certain that the turd would be washed away by the seemingly crushing flood. It tottered and swayed for a while, destabilized. It started to disappear into the vacuum created by the whirling waters...and when the water stopped sucking, it came back.

At this point, I started to consider my options: I could stay and fight this thing, or I could walk out on it. It was, after all, a public restroom - it could be anyone's turd after I abandoned it. But then I thought: what if someone walks in just as I'm walking out, and they walk to or past stall #3? They'll know I did it. They'll know it's my turd that's staring them defiantly in the face. There was no way I was going to let that happen. This library has become like my second home, my face is well-known here. I could not allow myself to be hereafter known as The Girl Who Dropped the Bomb and Walked Away. No. I would stay and fight.

I flushed and I flushed. I flushed until I started sweating and became delusional. I could have sworn that the turd smiled mischievously at me once; I might have taken an oath that I saw it holding the sides of the toilet so that the water could only rush over it, never pushing it down. I held my hair with both hands: what was I going to do? And then, the worst happened: someone came in. I panicked! Immediately, the first thought that came to my mind was: jump on the toilet seat! Don't let them identify your shoes! In my half-crazed state, the worst that could happen would be if they saw my shoes through the gap in the stall, then saw me walk out three hours later - it would be as embarrassing as them seeing the turd itself. It would be written all over my face and I would be labeled The Girl Who Spent Three Hours Flushing Down Her Floater. In mid-leap, the turd winked at me. I realized then that jumping on the seat would be signaling defeat. I begat this turd, it did not beget me; I would not be belittled by this floating mass of undigestable crap.

I'll never know what the lady in stall #1 thought when she heard me crash-land on the floor of stall #3. My privacy no longer mattered at that point; the stomping had alerted her to my presence anyway. What mattered was conquering my shite. I cracked my knuckles and planned my strategy. The floater, by this point, had withstood approximately twenty gallons of water crashing down on it. It may have been strong, but it was not reinforced with steel; it would have to break sooner or later. I knew that this was my time to win, but I had to ensure that it was a swift victory, one that would ensure I didn't have to look into the eyes of the woman in stall #1 (I may have been at war, but I still had my pride). I listened; she was in #1, doing a #1. I didn't have much time. Quickly, I ripped off a few sheets of toilet paper, a.k.a. friction. I carefully dropped them right over the turd, so that they covered it like a soft, papery blanket. The lady in stall #1 was fidgeting; she was about to start ripping her own sheets of toilet paper. I took a deep breath, held it and flushed.

It put up a struggle, the turd did. But the friction that my t.p. created was unmatched and easily overpowered it. As the water sucked it out of sight, my turd squealed helplessly. Gleeful, I internally high-fived myself. I would have stayed to gloat, but I had no time. I had to get out of there, quickly. I could hear the woman wrapping her sheets in preparation for the wipe. Hurriedly, I unlatched the door and fled to the sinks. Two pumps of antibacterial soap, a quick rubbing of the hands under the flow of hot water. She was pulling up her bottoms now. Hand towels! Where were the paper towels?! I looked in the mirror and saw their reflection; they were behind me. I whipped round, grabbed one, frantically rubbed it over my hands. I could see her feet - she was turning around to flush! Soon, she'd be out of the stall and looking at my face! In one fluid motion, I opened the door and deposited the hand towel in the nearby trash can. As I bolted through the door to safety, I heard the woman in stall #1 unlatch her door and rush out, probably hoping to catch a glimpse of me, the Weird-Noise Chick in Stall #3. In the safety of the hallway, I raised my fists in triumph, grinning for all I was worth ($3.52; -$527.39 if you count my credit cards). I won!

It was a mere four minutes of my day, but they were a priceless four minutes. Because they were four minutes when I did not, could not, think about how to intelligibly write about tourism in Nigeria. All this, I owe to the turd. O valiant, vanquished turd! Your struggle has not gone unnoticed; you were of great service and will be remembered. As you maneuver the stinky sewers of this unglorious city (and hopefully - eventually - disintegrate), know that I think of you somewhat fondly, though I won't miss you much, and that I am grateful.

And to all, I bid you...adieu. Until next time.