David Sedaris

I am a fan of the writer, David Sedaris - his piece about his father's fondness for old food is one of the funniest things I've ever read - and so I was pleased to see him on the Radio 4 schedule. One of the things he read out in his first programme was a diary entry which, while I would really rather not have to concentrate on anyone’s experiences in a urinal, nevertheless exactly captures the infantilisation you experience and the craven urge to appease that all too easily seizes you in London daily life:
‘Harrods has opened a Krispy Kreme counter. Before sitting down to a doughnut and a cup of coffee, I went to the basement to use the restroom. There was a young man beside me at the urinal and, after he’d finished, he walked to the sink to wash his hands. The attendant asked him if he’d flushed. ‘Uh, yah,’ the young man said.
‘No you didn’t,’ the attendant told him. The young man returned and, as he pulled the handle, we exchanged that particular glance meaning, ‘The washroom attendant is crazy.’
This was the sort of behaviour you’d expect in a public toilet in Paris but not in a department store, especially such a fancy one. The attendant was black and looked to be in his sixties. His accent suggested that he was from the West Indies and his expression said in no uncertain terms that he hated these toilets and everyone who used them.
When it came my turn, I made a great show of the flushing, glaring at the urinal and its contents, as if to say, ‘Be gone, you.’ Then I washed my hands. There were towels folded beside the sink, but using one might have angered the attendant, so I wiped my hands on my pants. This seemed to please him, and I left the restroom thinking, ‘He likes me, he likes me.’