The great pretence

I really didn’t think it through.

On a whim, I booked into a 10-day ‘Story Salon’ being held on the ‘magical’ Greek island of Patmos.

I was keen to get back into my writing, and this workshop was being led by Cheryl Strayed (of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things fame) and three other notable presenters.

I was indulgent. And it was expensive. But also, it was the Greek islands (I’ve never been), it was Cheryl Strayed (and others), and it was about time I started splashing some cold hard cash on my mid-life crisis.

The promotional blurb promised lectures, conversations and creative exercises, as well as time to swim in the sea, hang at lovely beachside cafés, connect with kindred spirits, and explore the beauties and histories of the island.

In other words, totally bourgeois … and exactly what I needed.

In an effort to assuage my guilt at the obscene amounts of money I was about to spend to attend the retreat, I enthusiastically ticked the cost-saving option to share my hotel room with a complete stranger.

What could go wrong? It’ll be an adventure, I reasoned. And if I don’t like my roommate or she’s a bit boring, I’ll go to bed late, get up early and generally minimise all interactions. It’ll be fine.

I gave zero thought to the inextricable truth that sharing a room with a stranger also means sharing a bathroom … and everything that entails.

It’s amazing the lengths we humans go to to pretend we don’t shit. As kids, it’s a badge of honour (and almost mandatory) to get through your entire schooling without doing number twos. And as adults, most of us have played that waiting game in the office toilets – sitting patiently in a cubicle until you’re confident that everyone has left so you can crap in private. Then there’s the elaborate papier mache-like rituals we perform, lining the toilet bowl with layers of tissue to silence wayward splashes – just in case someone comes in mid-bowel movement.

It’s after midnight when I meet my new roomie in Patmos. It’s been a long journey for all of us to get there, and I’m keen to make a good impression – to create the illusion that I’m a goddess who doesn’t defecate. So you can imagine my horror when, a few minutes after we first enter our shared room, my jet-lagged bowels signal the need to perform an untimely nighttime evacuation.

As I work to politely extricate myself from the conversation, my sleep-deprived brain is jagged by the vague memory of an email sent a few weeks earlier. Something to do with toilet paper.

I conveniently dismiss it as the brain fog of a menopausal woman.

I enter the bathroom to attend to my spasming sphincter, but as I lower myself onto the throne, the horror of my pooing predicament is confirmed by a strategically placed sign on the back of the bathroom door: PLEASE DO NOT THROW PAPERS OR WASTE OF ANY KIND IN the toilet.

Patmos plumbing, it would seem, isn’t built for the rigours of toilet tissue.

I go into a mild panic. I’m confounded by the logistics of this Sisyphean task. How do I mute the sounds of my daily business without the muffling benefits of 2-ply? And what am I meant to do with the soiled paper once the deed is done, and my back-passage clean up commences?

It feels like a scene from a horror movie … or Mean Girls.

I’ve known my roommate for all of 10 minutes. How can I maintain the pretence that I don’t shit. The walls are paper-thin.

Where’s the mystery? Where’s the dignity? And what the hell is this tiny metal bin strategically placed next to the toilet?

***

Fast forward six nights. My roomie and I are back from a dance party. (It turns out that she is delightful.)

“Are you finished in the bathroom?” I ask as I hear the sounds of teeth brushing subside.

“I’m done,” she replies.

“Great, because I’m full of farts and you might be subjected to an unwanted symphony once I close that door.”

Without missing a beat, she says “I’ll put my earbuds in.”

It’s so good to be seen for the goddess I really am.

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