An evening in a Chinese restaurant restroom

Darling had a babysitting gig the other night. Darling is my daughter. It’s not her real name, but you smarties already knew that. Anyway, I dropped her off at said gig. 

It was already 7:30pm. I was hungry. 

The boys and I headed to the neighborhood Chinese joint. Sometimes I’m brave and I take all 3 boys out in public. 

Spiderman (my third child) states his desire to poop. Pedal to the metal. Direct route to the restaurant. Actually, I always drive in a direct route, ask my husband. We have differing opinions about that. It’s an entirely different post though.

Minutes later were in the restaurant. It’s not busy. Just a few tables are occupied. We beeline it to the bathroom. Superman (my second child) goes into the men's room. Spiderman and Iron Man (my fourth child) join me in the ladies room. 

Spiderman takes his shoes, shorts and underwear off. Totally off. He can’t use the restroom with anything dangling off his lower extremities. And he always, always flings them with his foot. I try to catch them before they hit the floor. I didn’t win. Gross. Even nice public restrooms are gross. 

A few minutes go by and I realize we may be here awhile. And awhile it was. Superman is done in the men’s and joins us in the ladies. These are single bathrooms. No stalls. 

It starts to get loud. Iron Man is chasing Superman in circles around me. Iron Man punches Superman. Superman cries like he was just shot. In case you were wondering, Iron Man is stronger than Superman even though Superman is older. Spiderman is cheering them on from his toilet throne. It’s loud. Too loud. I know people can hear us. 

I strongly encourage Spiderman to hurry up. I encourage a few more times. I actually get him off the toilet only to have him rush back on because he “has more”. I can see a deal needs to be made here. I tell Spiderman we need to order our food and then we can come back and he can “finish”. It works. We wipe, flush, wash, exit. 

There's a "walk of shame" feel as we head to the front of the restaurant. It was much busier now. Some acted like they didn’t hear us. Others offered their sympathies with a small smile. Employees peeking around the corner suddenly act busy. Nice. Personally, I avoided all eye contact. 

Bet they thought we left the bathroom in a chaotic state. Like we uprooted the toilet, smashed it to bits and forcefully ripped the plumbing from the wall leaving the water spraying everywhere. I assure you we didn’t. 

Meals were ordered, fortune cookies were devoured, to-go boxes were quickly assembled.

To the van, superheroes! To the van!

I am almost certain there was applause, possibly a standing O as we exited. I didn’t dare turn back to see though.

I'm just happy we made their meals a little more interesting.