LAST STRAW

I had to go to the washroom badly, really badly. But in that huge office building in the center of the huge city Kiev (Ukraine), the one and only public washroom was closed for two hours (!) for… a lunch break. At least the sign said so.

“Don’t be so naïve,” one guy kindly advised me. “They just started to drink vodka inside and will not open it at all.”

“They” were the owners of that public washroom. Hard to believe, but it was the first thing that changed in my old country after a communist regime fell down. Suddenly, almost overnight, all public washrooms became private and you had to pay, let’s say, like $2 (compared to our salaries at the time) per visit, no family or senior discounts whatsoever.

Of course, those places were smelly and dirty like before, but what choice did everybody have? Either pay or… some guys chose “or”, that’s why most of the elevators and porches, not to mention bushes, became smelly as well (at least for free!)

The new “entrepreneurs” were so happy with their sudden wealth that they left their “businesses” open for just a few hours per day in order to have more time to celebrate that windfall right on the premises, again, smelly and dirty. So there they were, both men and women. 

Can you imagine all the beauty of that party? I couldn’t, I needed a washroom right away!

The same Good Samaritan helped me with an advice. “There is a big hotel around the corner, try your luck there.”

Of course, the doorman didn’t let me into the lobby without interrogation, so I had to explain my needs to him and all the passersby's. Surprisingly enough, the doorman didn’t send me away and was even kind enough to call for a cleaning lady.

“Ask her permission, because it’s she who cleans that washroom.”             

“Please, let me in,” I asked and looked in her half sober eyes with a kind smile. “Of course, of course, I will pay, here it is… money… So, can I?”

She looked at me, feeling like Her Majesty, while I, a 40-year old father of two, a two-time university graduate, at that moment a journalist, even the president of the Publishers and Journalists Association of the whole country, was waiting eagerly for her reply. To be or not to be, am I good enough in her eyes to go in the washroom?

Oh, happy day! Permission was granted!!! But it was too late. No, my underwear was left dry, but my mind was made. That moment became the last straw that helped me answer the question I had been thinking about for the last six months. Right on that spot I made a decision, which changed my, my family’s and all our descendants’ lives forever.

I came back to that building with the washroom party in progress and bought tickets.

They were tickets to Canada.