There’s a lady’s restroom a few steps in front of the students’ computer room where I’ve been working for a year. The sign on the door reads:
Nur für Mitarbeiter
Members of stuff only
So I suppose most students who only take lectures here won’t use it but those working as p.h.D candidates or staff would visit it.
It’s a small restroom with only three toilets. Normally I would go for the corner cell to avoid asking if a cell is occupied. Believe it or not, I’ve never come into that situation or been asked by someone else during the past one year and a half. Usually I’m the only one inside the restroom and very rarely is there someone else. Most often it’s the cleaning employee, an aunt always smiling and being nice to me, and sometimes the secretary.
Today I went working because of the deadline of my thesis. And once again, I’m here, the corner cell. There was one time when I found I was the first one to use that toilet, I was ecstatic and tweeted something like “hooray”. Yet that was not a rare case. Once I notice it, it becomes more evident as well as more often. Well, that’s what is called Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. As for today, I guess I’m still the first and even the only one who uses that cell, judging from the flipped-up toilet lid. It’s always nice to own a private space, even though it only belongs to me in a short time. But thinking from the other side, it is pathetic as it implies how small a portion the female mekes up in this department.