The Dismount

one day at work, while minding my own business in the bathroom stall doing my own business, I noticed a shadow on the floor in the other stall in front of me. odd...I see shadow but no feet! seriously! now, I'm kind of freaking out at this point. WTF? is there a predator waiting to pounce? is there a poltergeist? all I knew was that I needed to wrap things up and get outta there...and fast! and so I did.

several days later, while chatting in the cube farm, I make mention of the phantom in the bathroom. my cube neighbors were in disbelief, "let me get this straight....you saw shadow, but no feet?!?!" I'm sure they were starting to think I was loopy. then as if on queue, another cube mate, "Bouncy", came along, caught the gist of the cube chatter and confirmed the situation: on a separate occasion, she had experienced the same phenomenon! (thank goodness, I wasn't losing my mind!) predator. poltergeist. phantom. call it what you will. all we know is that we saw shadow in the stall, no feet!

until one day.....

Bouncy was in the bathroom, and it happened again. phantom shadow in the next stall, no feet. and then all of a sudden, feet! instantaneously! In a blink, 2 feet hopped down into view at the same time. not one, then the other. both feet at the same time landed on the ground simultaneously. and if that weren't weird enough, the feet landed, toes pointed towards the toilet, not away from it. think about it for a second. toes always point away from the toilet. right?!?

Bouncy and I went to the very stall that the phantom seems to favor and scoped out the scene. why and how on earth do your feet land on the ground facing the toilet? the only thing we can surmise is that Phantom Shadow No Feet didn't want to take a seat for some reason. (I know, it's insane. it's not like this is the bathroom at a dirty, banged-up gas station. this is the women's restroom in a relatively fabulous office. oh, and I use the word "fabulous" loosely here, just to make my point.)

convinced that we're on to something, we do a re-enactment. Bouncy faces the toilet and proceeds to mount the toilet seat and plants her feet on the seat, in a squatting-like position. in order to stay on, she has to grab on to the pipeworks behind the toilet, where the flusher is. I go to the other stall to see if I see Bouncy's shadow, no feet. confirmed! I'll be damned! if Phantom Shadow No Feet didn't want to sit on the seat, why not just plant your feet on the ground and hover?

now we were determined to get to the bottom of this: who is Phantom Shadow No Feet and why does she hover with her feet on seat? the only clue we had was that P.S.N.F. was wearing white pumps when Bouncy saw The Dismount. good thing it wasn't the 80's when white pumps were "in." though we only had 1 clue, it was the equivalent of the "smoking gun." no one really wears white pumps like those. they weren't cute Jimmy Choos or anything fabulous like that. these were pasty white, minnie-mouse-looking pumps.

floor by floor, cube by cube, Bouncy and I nonchalantly walk around the office, in search of the white pumps. and then at last! we found her. white-pump-wearing Phantom Shadow No Feet. OMG! It was so funny. Bouncy and I just died laughing. PSNF was none other than this sweet-looking, short, petite lady in accounting! who would've thunk it! she's no predator, phantom, or poltergeist.

mystery solved! Phantom Shadow No Feet was just too short to hover with her feet on the ground. we'll still never know why she wouldn't just take a seat. that's what the seat liners are for. use 2, 3 or 4 at a time...they're free. who knows why, but one thing's for sure: with her elevated hovering position, you definitely don't want to use the stall after her...there's gotta be some splash. I'll never know, and I'm definitely not gonna find out!