I normally am not one for bathroom humor, but I found myself tickled pink yesterday, as I was still laughing about the things I observed in the ladies' squatty at the beach on Friday. If you're not amused, I do apologize...but squatties are a part of life in this part of the world. You have to learn to laugh at them at some point!
SQUATTY POTTY: a hole in the ground with footprints on each side (just in case you don't know where your feet should go).The unspoken rules I observed at the ladies' squatty at the beach--
1. Etiquette does still exist of certain types of people being allowed to move to the front, no matter how long the queue: very pregnant women, very old women, very young children holding themselves with their legs crisscrossed.
2. Showering in the squatty is not appreciated by the women waiting in the queue. Just because there is a water hose in there, doesn't mean it is there for the removal of sand. There are showers outside for that. The hose is for cleaning a particular body part...once you start spraying elsewhere, the waiting women will beat the door down.
3. If you are using the squatty to change clothes (either into your swimsuit or out of it), any woman who needs to use the squatty for its true purposes has the right to move ahead of you in the queue.
4. If a fully covered Arab woman goes in the squatty in front of you, be patient. She's got a lot of arrangin' to do with all that cloth!
5. If an extremely proper Englishwoman enters with a young toddler, and proceeds to explain loudly to him how to use the squatty, it is completely appropriate to chuckle to yourself. If you hear him fall in the squatty, it is completely appropriate to laugh out loud, as long as you make a face that communicates you also feel bad for the little guy.
6. If you are a Western woman dressed in a bikini, expect every Arab and Asian woman to move ahead of you in the queue for no apparent reason. The reason: you lost all priviledges when you decided to show that belly button ring of yours in this part of the world. To them, skin must mean no need to use the squatty.
7. Bring your own toilet paper. Squatties don't provide them. If the public squatty was nice enough to provide toilet paper, the paper has long since been soaked through by the hose.
8. Germaphobes beware or be understanding! Most people leaving the squatty will not wash their hands, because they did not use their hands--they used the hose. I agree with you--they were in a squatty, they ought to wash their hands! But their logic is not the same as ours, and thus, as Loren would say, 'Bathroom hands!'
9. Expect to wait a very long time for your chance to use the squatty, for the above mentioned reasons: everyone has the right to go in front of you, covered women, showering women, the hose going berserk...
10. Don't think you can escape using the squatty. Spending a day at the beach in 100 degree weather with Central Asians equates to lots of water and lots of tea. Nature will call, and round here...it calls you to a squatty.
