Look Before You Poop

Perhaps I’ve become a bit too comfortable in Logan International Airport’s Terminal C.

Terminal C is the terminal I use most often, after the ones in Toronto. Of the airlines that have regular Toronto-Boston routes, Air Canada is probably the best option, both price- and comfort-wise. They tend to use larger and more comfortable jets than the next-best option, American Eagle, and they use Terminal C, which has better restaurants and stores and more available power outlets than Terminal B. It’s also where the Logan branch of Legal Sea Foods, home of some very good “chowdah”, is located.

Yesterday afternoon, I took Brent Ashley to Legal for some chowder and calamari, to thank him for giving me a free pass to the Ajax Experience conference. The “Thai Style” calamari is pretty nice, with its spicy pineapple-and-peanut sauce, but let’s face it: it’s seriously deep-fried and greasily travels through your system like Mario Andretti down a straightaway. Needless to say, I felt nature’s rather urgent call while waiting at the gate and asked Brent to keep an eye on my stuff while I beelined for the bathroom.

I’ve used the bathroom at Terminal C dozens of times, so I navigated my way there on auto-pilot. I saw a set of open stalls, picked one and went about my business.

As I was finishing up, I noticed that the voices of the guys in the room were a little…weird.

That’s when I realized that I’d just taken a crap in the women’s room.

A plane must’ve just landed, because the bathroom got very full. I decided that right then would be a very bad time to emerge from the stall; better by far to wait for a lull. The last thing I needed was a room full of women who might be under the mistaken impression that I was some kind of Japanese toilet pervert who got his jollies listening to women using the bathroom.

I even briefly considered tossing my black blazer over my head in the hopes that it would hide my bearded face and perhaps even fool casual onlookers into thinking I was wearing some kind of chador. Hey, I’ve had stupider ideas.

A few minutes later, I got the lull I was waiting for. I opened the stall door and set a quick but not overly hurried path for the door and crossed the hall into the men’s washroom, where I washed my hands.

Note to self: Look before you poop.

(By the bye, the women’s washroom at Logan is just as poorly-maintained as the men’s.)