Raphael's Village

At Sam's club a couple of weeks ago, my husband, daughter, 2-1/2 year old son and I stood outside the family restroom as that is where the changing table is located. My husband was preparing the toddler to go into the restroom when a man, about 60 years old stepped in front of us for the family restroom. He noticed our disbelief that he would do such an action and said, "I'll be only a second". My first thought is he needs to blow his nose or something quick. He was in there long enough to write a preface to the next Gabaldon novel. We waited and waited. My 8 year old daughter had gone into the ladies room and was out in the time that the not-such-a-gentleman was in the family room.

Couldn't he have gone to the general men's room? Could he not read? Was he just rude? Does he do this at home? If he needed to pee so badly, why didn't he use the main men's room? When he exited, should he have explained himself? Absolutely! If he had no choice but to use that facility (leaking colostomy bag is his only real excuse), then he could said there was an emergency. I don't really need to know about a leaky colostomy bag, but any explanation would have been fine.

In any case, in kindergarten we learn to share. We learn that there is boys' restroom and a girls' restroom. We learn to know the difference. My biggest *censored* here is that this is a family restroom. Not the pushy old man restroom. So what did he teach us? What did he teach the 8 year old?

Everything we do impacts someone else. We need to sometimes stop and think about our actions (or non-actions) and move forward with a bit of caution.