One Square.

Life presents very few opportunities when you can help somebody with your pants down.

"Does anybody have any toilet paper?"

I always imagined that I would pull a Seinfeld.  I would be the snobbish woman who can't spare one square.  I wouldn't do it because I was literally out of T.P., or that I was afraid our public restroom hands would mingle under the dividing wall, but simply for the amusement of seeing the person squirm.  The silence that would follow.  And, like Elaine, they would be baffled, "You can't spare it??" 

"I'm sorry," I would say.  "I can't spare one square."  Flush.

Maybe it was the way she walked into the restroom humming to herself like an African American gospel singer.  So full of the spirit.  So young. 

Or the way she sat down on the toilet and started peeing like a racehorse, declaring "Awesome!" ...to a friend, standing by the sinks, I assumed.

She said something about toilet paper.  To the friend, I thought.  The silence that followed indicated that it was just her and I, in the restroom across from my office. 

Again she said, "Is there any toilet paper over there?"

This time, there is no occasion to play dumb.  Either you sit there in silence, the Faceless Other in the restroom, or you hand over the T.P., the Good Samaritan on the 4th floor.

It's a test of character--who you are when no one's looking.  Nobody would know you didn't hand over the toilet paper, that you walked out on her, leaving her to her own devices--a hand, a shirt sleeve, or worse, nothing.  You could fold up the book on your lap and walk out--heck, even take all the toilet paper with you.  

It would be sticking it to all those cheery girls.  The Northface girls, the guitar-strumming girls, the girls who print, "Love is Patient, Love is Kind" on their wedding programs.  "Your over-eager approach to life disgusts me!" it would say, to not hand over the toilet paper.  It would teach all of them to bring their heads out of the clouds and look before they sit.  The world is a dangerous place, and singing a song won't always make things better.  How else will they learn?

I am so much tougher in my fantasies.  It didn't tear me up that much to hand over the toilet paper, heck--I'm not heartless.  But did she have to thank me twice?