HAVE you ruined your train journey by needing the loo? Here’s how to use one of those coffin-sized toilets from hell without lasting damage to your mental health.
Don’t touch the inside handle
When you close the door, the handle will be wet. It could be water but you know in your heart what it really is. Close the door with your foot and flip the lock with your knee if you don’t want to wake up in the night screaming, “P*SS! P*SS! THERE’S P*SS ON MY HANDS!”
Breathe through your mouth
Don’t allow your nostrils to sample the smorgasbord of poo aromas. You could try not breathing at all, but for Christ’s sake don’t pass out and come round with your face pressed against the toilet seat. You’ll surely end up in a straitjacket in a mental asylum.
Don’t sit down
If your skin so much as brushes against the toilet seat, you won’t feel clean again unless you chop your buttocks off. Ladies may consider doing daily squats to build up strength; macho male types may just plonk themselves down, but secretly they’ll be thinking about their contaminated bottom for the rest of the day.
Don’t assume the water works
Just because your ticket cost more than your last holiday doesn’t mean you can expect running water on the train. Check the tap is working to avoid lasting memories of scraping cheap soap off your hands with bits of bog paper.
Don’t forget to press the lock button
If you miraculously find one of those big toilets with fancy Star Trek-style sliding doors that’s actually working, don’t forget to press the ‘lock’ button, or you might end up traumatising other people as well as yourself.
Don’t make eye contact on your way back down the carriage
As you do the wobbly walk of shame back to your seat, trying not to grab other passengers’ heads to steady yourself, be sure not to catch anybody’s eye. Seeing their pity and disgust will only heighten the trauma.
