A Short Story on the Importance of Signs and Pants

All you need to know is that for a variety of boring and silly reasons, I was distracted.  So when Little Bug pulled me into a bathroom in an unfamiliar location chanting about needing to go, I didn't resist for a single second.

I stood inside near the door of the public restroom while Little Bug went into the stall by himself, a recent feat that still requires a bit of coaching and inching away bit by bit.  In the midst of trying to focus on talking to him with calming enforcement and thinking about all the other things going, I vaguely noted a urinal backing on the wall leading to a drain on the floor.  I had just finished grimacing with disgusted at what was clearly the grossest bathroom ever for having a pee drain right in the floor when an older gentleman walked into the restroom and stopped short staring at me before asking a moment later, "Are you in the wrong place?"

And in an instant, it all clicked into place.  The memory of seeing a"boys" sign outside the door.  The obvious urinal I had been contemplating as if it were something novel.  I had, for the first time in my life, accidentally went into a men's bathroom.

In retrospect, it is a good thing that I hadn't needed to use the bathroom as well, or that I wasn't bunched into the stall with Little Bug when this man walked in and likely started doing his designated-location business.  Instead, I was able to mutter an apology and high tail it right outside the door.

Of course, this went over about as well as a load of No2 bricks, and my little one was out of the stall and out of the bathroom in a blink of an eye, calling out my name in panic loud enough for everyone in either side of the hallway to hear.

And he was naked from the waist down.

The End.