Rooster in the Henhouse

After many tellings and by semi-popular demand, I officially present Rooster in the Hen House. I hope my embarrassment provides joy to those reading this post, and I hope it lives up to the many verbal tellings.

Betsy and I were coming back from Utah last summer and stopped in St George to eat lunch. Since we hadn't gotten Cafe Rio while there, we decided it was a great time to eat Utah's finest pseudo-Mexican food. As every seasoned traveller knows, Mexican food is probably not the best thing to eat while on the road. But Cafe Rio hardly feels like a Mexican joint, for one thing the most popular thing on the menu is a salad.
Ignoring sound travelling wisdom, I endeavored to eat the whole pork barbacoa salad with a tall Coke. Then we were back on the road.
The next big stop was Mesquite, Nevada, about 40 minutes away. We needed to stop for gas, so it seemed a relief for my bowels, which were quaking, and a great 2-for-1 stop. I pulled into the station, set easily in the same parking lot as a McDonalds and told Betsy to pump the gas, I had some business to take care of.
I waddled across the pavement to the cool interior of the McDonalds. I opened the men's bathroom and to my bowel's disappointment there was only one stall, which was occupied and one guy waiting for it. What was I to do? I had to go. Now! So I peaked into the ladies, just out of curiosity. No one appeared to be in there! And there were two stalls. I had three options; 1. Wait in line and potentially crap my pants, 2. Go find another bathroom and potentially crap my pants, or 3. Use the empty women's stall.
Now I've used a women's bathroom before. I have no problem with it. This is America. But every time before it was a onesy room that locked, meaning no other women could be in there. This was a full ladies restroom. I stepped inside, reasoning that it was better than crapping my pants in the middle of McDonalds and I would be relatively safe since there wasn't anyone visible.
So I quickly hopped into the open stall and let loose. The other stall was a large one with a changing station in it. After sitting down, I realized that the person in that stall was changing a diaper besides doing whatever other business there was.
My business didn't take very long, but there soon arose a little problem. Before the person in the other stall exited, a small family of females entered; a mom and two daughters. I couldn't walk out at that point. I didn't want to traumatize the little girls for life. The mom went into the vacant stall and the two girls waited. I would exit as soon as the girls were gone or in the stall.
But by the time that happened, more women arrived. And now with basically only one usable stall (a scared dude was using the other one), the flow of traffic slowed down. More and more women starting coming in and standing around to wait. I was trapped!
This was about 10 minutes into me sitting in there. I had finished everything and was sitting on the edge of the seat ready to jump out of there. About this time I texted Betsy of my predicament. Initially, she thought my texting was going to involve pooped pants. She was relieved to hear it wasn't and amused at my male predicament.
Then to my utter hope, it seemed like a prayer was answered...there was a slight lull in the amount of women in the bathroom. There were only about 2 women waiting now. If the lull could last, I had a chance of escaping. But no, my prayer was not answered...maybe God has a sense of humor or maybe he didn't want to help me out of a mess I so brazenly jumped into. At any rate, the bathroom started filling up again.
And just as every time when there are lots of women having to use the bathroom, a line formed. The line formed straight to the door and then out. In fact, the line became so long towards the end of my time in there that the door was held open.
I continued to text Betsy, getting reports on the outside world. She thought maybe a diversion could help. I don't know what kind of diversion could get 15 bladder filled ladies to leave the bathroom, but I was open to any diversion she could create.
I began getting seriously worried, I wasn't just hearing women's voices now, I could hear a man's in the distance. I feared it was a manager or employee. I think it was just some dude that was pissed that he had to wait for his wife for so long, because he was standing near the doorway according to Betsy, and looking like he wanted to beat someone up.
And by this time I could hear the chatter growing among the ladies, including whispers of "I think there's a man in there." For I have yet to mention that I was wearing sandals and the door didn't extend to the floor. Someone looking closely could see that either I was a woman with very hairy feet or indeed a man.
What could I do now? It would only get worse. The line would either extend off forever or the McDonalds manager would come banging on the door and I would potentially be prosecuted for some weird peeping Tom or sexual offense. So I used the logic I usually have to turn to when faced in similar situations where awkward contact needs to be made with strangers: Why are you worried, you're never going to see these people again.
And with that tried and true logic, I flushed an empty toilet and opened the stall door. To the Mesquite, NV travelling women's mouth-dropping horror, there was a MAN in the women's restroom.
The line stretched down the wall of the bathroom, past the far wall and out the door. I walked down the line proudly trying to hold a little dignity and shred of manhood, making eye contact with almost every woman. Some looked away, some stared back blankly, a few gasped, but all were stunned. My hindsight memory tells me that a woman even covered the eyes of her daughter, but I doubt it really happened. I'll leave that to the lore of my memory.
Betsy was walking back in to check on me when I walked out. She didn't know what to do, so she ran back outside before making contact with me, worried that some angry mob was going to get us. But we butt tailed it out of there so fast there was no time for a mob to form.
I would have loved to hear the conversations in there after I left. I'm also curious about the first person in line, if she walked into the stall without question or was slightly trepidacious at using it. At any rate, I learned a valuable lesson that road trip...never eat Cafe Rio in St. George.