Laurel A. Ness: TRUTH BEHIND THE FICTION: PUBLIC TOILET MISCHIEF (plus a bonus story!)

People often ask me if my books are based on my real life. My sheepish answer is, "Yes and no." My stories as a whole are fiction, but they contain scenarios, here and there, based on real-life happenings in my past (mainly strange, funny, or embarrassing--or all three!) . This series, "Truth Behind the Fiction," is meant to pull those individual fictionalized stories from the whole picture of my books, and tell the zany facts as I remember them.

The Fiction Part (majorly abridged): From the Lainey's Bridge series: Lainey has a tussle with a toilet at the public pool, much to her sisters' amusement.

The Truth Behind the Fiction: You may be aware that Springtown, Iowa, the fictional home of Lainey Preston's grandparents and other relatives, is loosely based on an idyllic-to-me town in Ohio, where my own relatives lived and where I still have beloved family and friends.

Two of my sisters (Mary and Julie) and I used to spend several weeks there in the summers, just like Lainey and her sisters. (I am the oldest of five girls. Our two youngest sisters were too young to be away from home that long at the time when I was in high school.) One of our favorite hangouts was the public pool, which was within walking distance of my grandparents' home.

One sultry summer day, we strolled to the pool as usual, paid the fee, and went to the ladies' locker room to change. I needed to use the restroom first, and walked into a stall, securing the door as usual. I noticed the black institution-style toilet seat was up, but didn't think it particularly odd. I assumed the toilet had just been cleaned and the maintenance person had simply left the seat up.

Thinking, "Oh, good, at least it was just cleaned," I grasped the toilet seat in order to put it down to its seated position. Only problem was that the seat was not attached to the toilet. It had come off at the hinges and someone had just set it back up on the toilet.

So, there I was with this heavy black toilet seat in my hand, feeling flustered and embarrassed, even though no one had seen me.

Yet.

What was I thinking when I made my next move? I honestly don't know. I probably wasn't thinking at all, but just reacting in a moment of ridiculousness. I must have been insane to do what I did.

I opened the stall door, walked out toward where my sisters were already waiting for me, and held up the toilet seat. "What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked in all my smartness.

I can still picture their red cheeks as they laughed with glee at my humiliating moment, along with other passers-by, I'm sure.

"Shut up, you guys!" was my next brilliant remark. "What should I do?"

I'm sure they were bewildered at their eldest sister, who was supposed to be the one with all the answers; the one who would just play it cool; the one who could easily figure out what to do with a broken toilet seat. Who was this girl with the frenzied eyes, who looked and sounded like Laurie, but did not see the potential for mischief right there under her white knuckles?

"Put it back on the toilet, what else?" said Mary, very sensibly, though a snicker escaped.

"Yeah, just put it on and someone will sit on it and find out the hard way that it's broken," added Julie, cheeks still pink.

Both girls had the impish twinkle to their eyes that they always got when we planned pranks. I felt better now that they were on my side, and we were working toward a common goal instead of them making fun of me. In fact, I was downright proud at all I had obviously taught them. ;)

As if it took three people to carry a toilet seat, the three of us went into the stall and made sure it was situated on the toilet just right, so there was nothing obviously wrong with it. Then we giggled a bit and I went to the sink to disinfect my hands.

(The ending of this story is tied in with the ending of the bonus story.)

BONUS STORY

There is no fiction part to this story, because it will never make it into one of my books, as far as I'm concerned right now.

That same day, we girls had packed a gym bag, as we always did, with our towels and stuff we needed.

The girls had insisted I carry the bag, which wasn't a big deal. Or so I thought.

As we walked to the pool, I was swinging the bag back and forth and sometimes carrying it with the straps over my shoulder. I was aware of people walking, talking, and laughing behind us on the sidewalk, but, again, it wasn't unusual that others would be walking the same path.

It wasn't until we were in the locker room that I noticed anything amiss. I don't remember if I saw a glimpse of it in the mirror, or how I finally discovered it, but I saw something white on a random spot of the navy blue gym bag. It wasn't a strap or anything else that was supposed to be there.

I'm sure I had a "what the heck?" kind of look on my face as I situated the bag in my hands so I could investigate what the problem was. I thought maybe there was a hole in the bag and a towel was sticking out.

Um, there was no hole and there was no towel sticking out. What there was was a Kotex pad--full size--that someone had obviously unwrapped and stuck to the bottom of the bag. Yeah, the bag that I had been carrying and swinging around in my carefree manner, as who knows how many people walked behind us or drove past.

Terrific.

You must understand that this was in the days before the "delicate matters" of womanhood were talked about so freely and frequently. You know, when, other than the Cathy Rigby commercials, a girl still felt like there some mystery for the boys about what a girl endured. ;)

In other words, it was triple-mega embarrassing to find you had a pad stuck to your gym bag!

At first it didn't even dawn on me that one or both of my sisters had gotten the best of me. I usually got them, or we worked together to get somebody else. They were too young to prank me, right?

"You guys, come here!" I beckoned them into a curtained dressing room. "Oh, my gosh! Look at this!" I gestured toward the surprise on my bag. "How could this have gotten here? I don't remember setting the bag down anywhere."

People generally thought I was pretty smart. I wasn't.

"Oh, wow!" "How could that have happened?" "Sick!" "You were the one carrying it the whole time, weren't you? Stinks to be you!" These were the types of comments offered by my trusted partners in crime.

I peeled the humiliating item off the bag and handed it to Mary. "Here." Let someone else figure it out for a change.

She shrugged and stuck it to the wall of the dressing room. We all laughed and went out to swim.

Later, on our way out to go back to Grandma's, we couldn't resist a peek at our handiwork. First the restroom stall--the toilet seat was gone. We snickered and moved to the dressing room. Pad still stuck to wall. We guffawed part of the way home.

For many years, neither sister would admit to knowing anything about it. Then, several years ago, one of them admitted to having decorated the gym bag with a feminine product. But I won't reveal who it was because: a) I don't have her permission, and b) I can't remember if she actually admitted it, or if it was a dream, which is a confusion that happens from time to time as I . . . mature (I was going to say "age," but, wow, that makes me sound ancient!).

Gee, if you can't trust your own sisters . . . ;)

P.S. Two things: Please keep in mind I was being a thoughtless teenager--if you live near me and we frequent the same places, you needn't worry that I would even touch a public toilet seat now, let alone leave it loose on top of the toilet for you or anyone else to hurt yourself on. Also, I have this sinking feeling that someone out there might wonder about this, so I'm just going to go ahead and be totally gross and establish right here and now that the Kotex pad was UN-used!!! Ugh! I can't believe I just typed that!