No Good Answer

I was at my Venice gig when the drummer in the band came up to me and said, “Can you do me a favor? Can you watch the restroom door while I go to the bathroom?”

            He’d been having stomach problems for the last two weeks. His stomach had him running around looking for a nice safe place to crap.

            “Where are the restrooms?” he asked me.

            “I think they’re right over there,” I pointed to a building that I thought were the public restrooms near the beach.

            “Those aren’t public restrooms,” he reported back to me after checking them out.

            I had a simple job. I was to stand in line to give the appearance that I was waiting for the restroom, while “Gus,” we’ll call him Gus, did his business.

            At first it was just me in line, and every thing was easy, but then thirty seconds later another guy showed up, and fifteen seconds after that still another guy showed up to be third in line. We were all standing there waiting. We weren’t waiting long, but it seemed long, because it was the restroom and the fellows had to go. The guy third in line got impatient.

            “Hey, there’s two urinals in there!” he said to me.

            I just smiled and threw up my hands. I was thinking the guy had too much information. I had a bad feeling about him. He was a loose cannon.

            Sure enough, the guy third in line took matters into his own hands and rushed past me toward the door. There was nothing I could do to stop him, it happened so quickly. In my deviousness I was curious to see his reaction once he opened the door. 

            He flung the door open and saw “Gus” sitting on the toilet taking a crap. He made an awful face and shut the door as quickly as he could.

In my mind I had just taught the guy a valuable lesson about patience. I subsequently abandoned my post. I was sitting at the bar when Gus walked out of the restroom. He was tucking in his shirt and looking for me at the same time. 

He caught up to me.

“What happened?” he asked me in a whisper.

            “The guy stormed the door. There was nothing I could do to stop him,” I whispered back.  

            “What if we were at war, and my life depended upon you?”

            To that question I had no good answer.