Ideas Break Out

And here I will make an educated guess (rather than a bet), when you were of that school age of which I am currently referring to (in the current re-telling of my incident), you also sat through hours of class lessons of mathematical problems, also most probably, when covering algebra and calculus specifically (and some conceptual physics), wondering, “When am I ever going to need to use this?” In this case, the time was now! My mind was rapidly doing a quick calculations.  Not of the formulae, just running through anything else, rather than thinking about how much I was busting to go, and how close the toilet was. I had of course, despite my discomfit, briefly forgotten that since the morning, when I had been able to use both arms (even though one had been in a cast, a dry one) to pull up my shorts, my arm was now, not only re-broken, but it was also in a fresh and damp plaster of Paris, arm cast. And now, I only had one arm to pull my shorts down. My shorts, for which the elasticised waist was a little too tight. Hence the problem. And of course I was busting to go. Could I embarrass myself and open the door to ask for assistance. No. I knew I had to cope. I looked around quickly assessing what were my options What was available in a toilet. Check the room. (years later the television character ‘McGyver’ made this sort of problem solving passé. I actually earned the nickname myself briefly, when I developed a reputation on some film sets for solving problems very rapidly, using what was available, simply and effectively and, most importantly, without affecting or indeed, ‘blowing’ a budget (more on that in a later blog)).
However, right now as this story unfolds, I am twelve years old, in a large hospital toilet. Urgently needing to use the facilities (doesn’t that sound polite?) a schoolbag full of books and one useless arm. First option, could I use the toilet roll dispenser to help? Unfortunately, not. It was not a small wall mounted single roll holder that could have stuck out from the wall at about leg height, which would have allowed me to use the edge to catch the shorts. It was instead a massive block device, with a huge single roll on the dispenser. Maybe our family could have used such a dispenser at home? Given how quickly rolls of toilet paper could be used up (with eight children and parents using the facility) and, if you had gone in in a rush, you may have had to call out for more. If you were lucky there was some. If not the options were never great. If you were lucky, there may have been more actual toilet tissues available. If not. Then it was sometimes paper, or newspaper (not very often, fortunately). But whatever happens, don’t try and use weekly magazines. They use glossy paper, for some reason and it doesn’t wipe or flush properly.
(Continued tomorrow)