Mini-post: Toronto without a skirt

Miss me? Oh, how I miss you, too. As mentioned in passing a couple of weeks ago, the household laptop is broken, making it near impossible to upload a proper blog post. My laptop's name is Darth Bleeblo (for reasons I won't bother trying to explain); Darth Bleeblo had some sort of stroke a couple weeks ago, and she's been off travelling to the laptop hospital or wherever it is that she goes when she's still under warrantee. She's giving the repair guys a run for their money, I hear: she's demanded special-order parts, and she even managed to eat her warrantee papers during shipment. All this has led to a slow recovery, and has made it virtually impossible to upload a blog post properly. But I have decided to post mini-blogs until she gets back from the shop, so you don't miss out on too much and so I don't lose my mind. Because once you get used to telling the world your stories 2-3 times per week, it's hard to shut up.

TORONTO WITH MJ 

This week I went to Toronto to see my BFF, MJ. You'll recall MJ moved to the big TO this past summer, leaving me grief-stricken and miserable, until finally I cracked and planned a trip to go see her. I am not a natural traveller, which probably is obvious for those who know about my anxiety disorder and OCD. Luckily, my plans coincided with the plans of my other BFF, Hal; so I had safe and stress-free wheels to get me there, and even a hotel room for the three of us to hide out in. 

On the first morning, MJ and I got up at the crack of dawn and quickly dressed to go outside for a smoke, trying hard not to wake up Hal. Hastily, I decided not to change out of my PJ's--little satin boxers and a tank top--but instead simply threw a stretchy wrap skirt over my bottom half, and a jacket over my top half. Feeling suitably dressed for standing on a Toronto sidewalk, we headed downstairs. 

I had to pee, but hadn't wanted to risk waking up Hal, so I told MJ to go ahead outside while I used the loo in the hotel lobby. When I finished and went to wash my hands, though, I looked in the mirror and realized that I was standing there in my tank top, jacket, and little satin boxers...no skirt. I whirled around and checked the stall to find my skirt, figuring the wrap ties had come undone: nope, no skirt there. A cold sweat broke out along my spine as I began to mentally trace my steps, trying to figure out where my skirt could have come off, and how I'd failed to notice. I spun around and around in the bathroom, hissing under my breath, "What kind of horrid nightmare is this?!" There was no way I could go out and find MJ on the street wearing tiny silk boxers, and there was no way I was going to walk back through the lobby, with all those bellboys dressed in suits.

At some point in my panicked stupor, I must have looked in the mirror again and noticed that my waistline looked a little rounder than usual. I did a double take and put my hands to my midriff; there, sure enough, was a jumbled bunching of fabric. With shaking hands, I slowly unfurled my bunched-up skirt from where it had been concealed under my bomber jacket. Clearly, I'd hitched my skirt up to pee, far enough up that it was tucked up around my waist. Covered by my jacket, it had seemed to disappear. 

I share this story because I know someone, somewhere out there, has embarrassed themselves this week, and will take heart in hearing s/he's not alone. Misery does love company.