I’ve been riding the motorcycle into the new contract for a month now. The last contract was great–I could work in my boots and jeans and didn’t have to worry about bringing a change of clothes. Now, I’m back to the compulsory uniform (meaning suit and tie). I’m wearing jeans or wet weather trousers into work and keep my suit shoes and trousers under my desk. I get into work, grab my suit and change in the toilet stalls.

There’s an art to changing in the toilet stalls. I’m still getting to grips with it.

First, you have to find a clean stall (no drops on the floor) with a hook.

Second, you have to find a quiet time of the day to do it.

I had a very embarrassing situation last week where I tried to change in a toilet at a busy time of day. I went into my stall and pulled off my boots, took off my trouser and was just folding them up to put into my bag. A queue was forming outside the stalls. This is when all of the change fell out of my pockets and onto the floor. It all rolled out of the stall and into the growing queue of people waiting. Since I was in my underwear and socks, I didn’t really want to walk out and start picking up my change, so I put my hand under the stall and started feeling around for the coins. I knew I had some £2 coins and I was going to need those for lunch later–otherwise I would have taken the hit and avoided the embarrassment. Eventually, everyone started kicking the coins back under the stall door. I deepened my voice and tried to say something masculine like “Yeah, nice one. Cheers mate.” I waited until all of the other stalls emptied and the queue was gone before I left.

It’s not easy changing in the toilets. Luckily, at the bank I’m working at now, the stalls are pretty clean.

When I told a colleague how difficult I was finding it changing in the toilets, he commented that it worked for Superman. But Superman didn’t change in the toilets– he used a phone booth or a broom closet. I couldn’t see Clark Kent sneak into the bathroom and check all of the stalls for the cleanest one to change in. “This looks like a job for Superman. Let’s see . . . this one? No, too smelly. This one? No, someone didn’t flush. This one? Skidmarks,” he would say before resigning to the first smelly one.

My point? Brink back the phone booth.

There’s a story in the news today about the growing problem of imposters sitting practical driving tests. Apparently, it’s possible to hire a look-alike to sit the test for you for just £500.

You can read the article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6231892.stm

When I came to England, I found the driving test very difficult to pass. I ended up taking it seven times over two years (and I had been driving for over ten years in the States). Each time I failed, the examiner would tell me how very close I was, “but sorry, you didn’t pass.” When I did pass the test, I got a license that doesn’t expire until I’m 70. No more tests. Even if we have flying cars in the year 2042, I won’t mind because my license will still be valid. Even in the States, you have to renew with a written exam every five years or so, but not here.

Now that I spend a lot of time riding around on a motorcycle, I see how drivers rarely look when they change lanes or signal when they enter roundabouts. They’ve established bad habits since they earned their license 20 or 30 or 50 years ago. It’s dangerous.

But, when road accident levels get too high, everyone jumps to the same conclusion—our tests are not difficult enough. They increase the difficulty. When I took the test in my late twenties, everyone said to me “I passed when I was 17, but it wasn’t so difficult then. I could never pass today.” Between the time I took my theory test for cars 6 years ago and the time I took the theory test for motorcycles two months ago, the DSA had attached an additional requirement—The Hazard Safety test. If you have a license already, you don’t have to take this test.

The roads are getting too dangerous so we take it out on 17 year-old kids who’ve never driven before by making sure they take their driving test over and over again. A 65 year-old man who took his test in the early 60’s if far more dangerous, I think. He’s the guy I worry about when riding my motorcycle.

No wonder people hire imposters to take their tests. I wish I knew about this scheme a few years ago.

There is a small retail park on the outskirts of Abingdon which has a Homebase, Argos, and a few other shops. A few weeks ago, while buying some things in Homebase to fix up the house, I found myself in a situation I always find myself in.

I had a trolley full of items, and one of my kids had to go to the bathroom?RIGHT NOW! We rush through the aisles to one of the tills?my boy dancing around behind me — and I ask the kids behind the counter if we can use the toilet. We get the typical response?”We don’t have toilets here, I’m afraid.”

“Where can we find the nearest toilet?” I ask?trying to convey my sense of urgency.

“There aren’t any in any of the other shops in this shopping centre. You have to cross the road and go over to Tesco”, he says. In other words, I have to abandon the trolley I’ve collected, rush the kids across the Homebase car park, cross a busy road with two traffic lights, cross the vast Tesco car park, and then try to find their toilet. And then, they assume I’ll return to Homebase to finish my shopping.

I can’t understand how a huge chain would spend so much money on purchasing products, setting up store space, and hiring staff and then keep me from making purchases because they don’t have a toilet.

But, or course they have a toilet. None of the kids working at Homebase are working with full bladders. They have a toilet, I just can’t use it.

And why? Why can’t I, as a lowly customer, use their toilet? Because someone somewhere fears I will piss on the seat!

Even if I did make a mess in their toilet and not clean it up (which I wouldn’t!), even if I urinated like I was doing it through a shower head, it would still make sense to hire someone to clean toilets once in a while than to lose business because they send everyone to Tesco. I’ve had jobs where cleaning toilets was occasionally called for. Everyone has to do it sometimes.

I would rant more about this, but I’ve got to go to the bathroom.