Chapter One.Four: A public embarrassment

Le Metropolitan, true to its word, stays underground unlike many of its pseudo-cousins around the world which cover only partial routes under the abovegroud. It rises occasionally to habitable geographies only to cross the river Seine; all such occasions are a welcome opportunity to feast one's sights on visions that are, subjectively, a lot better than those of dark and dreary tunnels.

It was such a sight that confronted and presented us with our first full-length view of the Eiffel Tower; which was looming besides when the metro taxi emerged and banked into the terminal serving the Eiffel Tower. We alighted to hostile conditions of threatening clouds and biting cold; all necessary conditions that, consequently, lead to a heavy bladder. Which eventually caused me/us our first public embarrassment.

Warning: A public restroom, the kind that we are used to back in India, is a myth in Europe. All such services requires one to part with at least a €uro.

Fact: Parisian sidewalks are dotted, at large, with free restrooms, which may be recognized by the boards stating Toilettes - Accès Gratuit (tuah-lai-th aa-ksai graa-tyoo-ee). One such board was sighted by me in the symptomatic condition that I described above. An added bonus was the complete absence of a queue, which was definitely an invitation considering the premium that is usually set on devices of such welcome nature.

Putting the fact and the warning together, I took the most natural action any sane human wanting to take a leak would. I ventured into it.

Having figured out a way of getting into the contraption, I relieved myself and came face to face with my predicament. The rest room showed no indication of a flushing mechanism save for a lever and a button. The lever yielded nothing. Then came the epochal moment when I depressed the button.

No flush responded but the door began sliding open. My willful attempts to halt its progress was all in vain and the door, purposefully, followed its tracked path. My concern at the opening door was circumvented by the immense relief I derived from my knowledge that the restroom was not being waited upon by other tourists. When the door slid open completely, I was presented with a long queue of French tourists, all exchanging friendly French exchanges. The lady at the head of the line smiled at me and waited expectantly for me to vacate, while I was at wits end; both at the sudden formation of the queue and the realization that the rest room was in an unflushed state.

Stupidity followed and I tried my anglicized French on the lady, asking her the needful procedure to perform a complete cleanup. She appeared confused and irritated now that I was blocking her entry. My master stroke: I called out to my friend, Mr. X, who also wanted to take a leak but was not among the queued people. He came forth and I explained the problem to him. I asked him to use the rest room so that at least he could figure out the flushing mechanism.

With that, I vacated and the rest room was then occupied by Mr. X. This was not welcomed by the enqueued tourists who exchanged glances of disbelief and annoyance. Mr. X seemed to take an eternity while the tourists were getting more and more pissed (pun intended) with incident. I was twitching nervously since my neck was only fingers away from the queuing members. Voices began rising and soon, someone began kicking on the door of the rest room. Eventually, the door slid open and Mr. X stepped out calmly with an amused look on his face.

We walked away purposefully while the kindly lady, who had smiled at me, eventually got to use the rest room. Walking away, I inquired of Mr.X as to the flushing mechanism to be followed. He calmly claimed that he, too, failed to flush the loo.

Walking away hurriedly to avoid any legal actions, my heart went out to that old lady who was presented the loo in that condition.....


P.S. - I still claim ignorance of the mechanism to be followed.

Note: The image of the free public toilets has been sourced from Master_Raik's Flickr profile.