Women in Bathrooms International, Inc.
I don’t know what goes on in “powder rooms” that requires so much time, but my theory holds, and I am convinced, that ladies have secret Global Command Centers in there and the survival of the planet somehow depends upon the heroic efforts of Women in Bathrooms (WIB).
Have you noticed how much powder sounds like power? I suspect women behind locked doors turn faucets sideways or something, walls rotate and mirrors become those transparent electronic screens you see in movies, on which maps and computer code can be moved around with your finger. Encrypted laptops display screen savers with menacing, slowly rotating 3D Women in Bathrooms International, Inc. logos. I’m pretty sure I’ve overheard the voice of Samuel L. Jackson welcoming them back – I don’t want to know.
I imagine that in each room, perfume-sensitive, multi-factor biometric login panels must be engaged (she stands in front of it, gazes into its electric eyes and flips her hair to one side, exposing that exquisite soft spot of her neck, right behind the ear lobe to gain access to Black Ops this and that, a wet bar with Baccarat crystal decanters, a rack of Italian stilettos (the knives and the shoes), glass shelves (backlit, of course) of impossible-to-get handbags, 12 little black dresses and a belt clip with 12 rounds of lipstick – five shades of red, five of pink, two of black – just in case, and wigs from the Uma Thurman Collection.
Finally, in an instant, by voice command, these women (ok, some guys get approved for membership, but it is not easy) change everything back as it was, casually emerge and declare, “OK, I’m ready to go.”
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.