squatters

Lydia's recent post on squatters reminded me of my own experience, 5 years ago.  Flashback to summer of 2002...

Ok so I was in Korea, and somehow found myself at the front door of apartment of the people I was supposed to stay with, but nobody was home.  Problem, I had to do a #2 real bad.  Well, not such a big problem, I thought to myself, there's a McDonalds across the street, I'll just go use their restroom.  For some reason the person has a hard time understanding me, but eventually they understand, and tell me it's outside the restaurant, around the corner, down a hallway (it was in sort of a shopping mall).  I follow the directions and find the restroom.  Alas, there are only squatters.  But what am I to do, it's an emergency.  So I get in there, and then I'm frantically trying to figure out how to use the thing.  Time is ticking so I give up trying to figure out the acrobatics, and just take off the pants and underwear completely, and let go.  Whew. Disaster averted.  I take a look down. Oh nasty.  I look around and find a lever, pull it, and whoosh! it's all gone! Huh, well it's apparently not for lack of plumbing that they have squatters here.  Maybe porcelain or whatever it is toilets are made of is expensive... So then I look around for toilet paper and then am horrified as I realize that there is none.  What kind of bathroom has no toilet paper??!! I'm instantly furious at Korea.  I'm racking my brain for solutions... If I knew about this beforehand I could've at least gotten napkins at the McDonalds. Can I gingerly waddle over there without creating a mess in my pants? Wait! I'm flooded with relief as I remember that I had one of those travel packs of Kleenex in my backpack which I *never* carry around ordinarily.  I happily fish it out, clean myself, and walk out.  Boy, Kleenex is soft!  Later that trip I would discover that the ubiquitous PC Bangs tend to have regular sit down toilets, and so I never had to go through the same sort of stressful ordeal the rest of the time there.