The Buffalo, Texas, Restroom

It was one of those long car trips where you realize ten minutes before your destination that you can't wait another minute to use the restroom. My grandmother and I mutually agreed to stop at a squatty building that looked suspiciously like it was made in 1907 and populated by pioneers before it became a quick-stop deli. We entered with the air of knowing what we were doing. Oh, how wrong we would be proved in just a few minutes. We took the door to the right that said Women's. Immediately upon passing through the door we took a left and then another right before we got into the actual restroom. So that's a right, a left, and a right, which means coming out, it would've been a left, a right, and a left. I should've taken note.

I, however, continued on my merry (and hurried) way, chatting with my grandmother about the pool tables outside and how I bet that every elderly man there was a regular customer and they all knew each other and they all ordered the same thing every day. "How quaint."

As we were washing our hands, we realized we hadn't bothered to turn on the lights upon entrance and it was really quite dark in the place. We were leaving now, though, so it didn't make a difference. Or so we thought...

Left, locked door. I backed up. The door was padlocked? How? And since when? We'd just entered through it! We would've heard someone jacking with the lock. I turned to my grandmother. "It's locked." A startled look came over her face but passed as she was positive I was wrong. She pushed in front of me down the tiny hall and fumbled at the door for a moment. I began my search for the light switch. However, nothing adorned the walls; not a picture, not a texture, and most importantly, not an electrical fixture. Slightly amused, I went back into the restroom area and surveyed the window. It was about 2" by 2". No way anyone was getting out that, not to mention it was far above our heads and trust me, there would be no standing-upon of shoulders.

A cry came from my grandmother as she realized we were really and truly locked in. The banging and yelling on the door process began. I was methodical about it, starting at one side and working my way to the other, banging with my balled fists, then knuckles; balled fists, then knuckles. My grandmother just wildly yelled and messily banged on the door. I remember thinking, couldn't you be a little more organized? But I refrained from saying it.

Something hit my head. I swatted at it and cursed the entire fly race while my banging increased. I was certainly not going to be stuck in here with a thirty-eyed, two-winged, compost-eating creature for the rest of the day. It hit my head with more force this time, and continued with seeming rhythm. Took me a few seconds to realize it was a stringed light switch swinging its plastic end into my head and every time I hit flung my arm up, it simply swung away and came back again.

"HEY! The light!" I jerked on it.

Nothing.

"It's not working." I turned to my grandmother, who tried pulling on it.

"After all that... we finally find it and it decides not to work..." She mumbled, yanking on it.

Nothing. She went back to un-methodically banging and yelling threats at the men we'd seen sitting quietly around the pool tables, drinking coffee and chattering over cold sandwiches.

I kept after that light. A few more tries, and a tiny, dull, yellow light flooded the narrow hall.

I paused, looking at my grandmother, and then at the locked door. My gaze went back to my grandmother's face, then to a door to the right of our positions. It was the door through which we had entered.

We looked ashamedly at the doors. "Two of them. How very amusing," I muttered, pushing open the right door and exiting the restroom with a red face. As we left the building, we noticed that by what could not have been coincidence, every one of the men's backs were turned and every single body was shaking with silent laughter.

We guessed we were not the first unfortunate victims of a restroom lock-in. Needless to say, we never went back.