yeah! I'm just. EXTREMELY not used to words coming out of my face like that. back before T my reaction to that kind of thing would've been 'stay in the stall & hope they eventually leave', with a side of 'probably cry'. confrontation WHOMST?

I take two things from this tale:

1) I have absolutely, without a doubt gained the confidence of a mediocre white man

2) I need to take some EFFING MARTIAL ARTS LESSONS before my mouth writes another check that the rest of me can not IN ANY MANNER cash. AGAIN.

"Thank you," I replied with a bit of a bow-flourish thing (SCA reflexes, I was totally running on instinct by then). "Where. Uh? Did?" I asked, & gestured in a vague manner.

... apparently Mr. That's Gay had vacated the bathroom immediately upon my holding forth on the topic of lube preferences.

I pretty much gave up on any thought of emerging from the stall in a tactical manner (I think the closest thing I had to a plan was 'bull rush the guy into a wall & run like hell') & just peeked out.

"Sir," said the laughing dude on the floor, "you have made my day."

which is when the hysterical, HOWLING laughter occurs, followed by the distinct sound of somebody sliding down the wall to sit on the floor

after a long moment I drawl "Well I'm bout to die, huh."

absolute silence in the mens room

Which is why, in the middle of contemplating what the hell I was going to do about all this, I was pretty surprised when my mouth opened & out came the following words:

"Look, I don't mind a lil oil on my ass, but I want something a bit nicer than 5w30"

now what you need to understand is that Shep is about six foot tall, whipcord & muscle, covered in tattoos, & chucks sheep around for funsies

I am five foot not quite three & well padded around the middle, & I took two aikido lessons once.

In this situation I am, at best, a chihuahua.

usually the guy code holds but every once in a while there's That Guy, & this was a That Guy kind of day, I guess

so That Guy turns away from a urinal & decides to take verbal note of the fact that I'd washed my hands first, which is, apparently, Gay

so I'm sitting there going welp, here we go

I'd changed the oil earlier, my hands were yucky, so I washed em first thing

then I'm sitting in a stall to pee cos not everyone gets issued a dick at birth, & as always I can hear the *click* of Shep's glasses on ceramic

I'm a trans guy in the mens room, that story naturally comes to mind

it WORKS

oh jeez, right? I do repost stuff from websites that do popups too, but I whine about it a lot. Atlas Obscura ROCKS.