Is It Possible To Be TOO Open Minded?

Last night a friend told me something I think she thought I would find weird or outrageous. It was certainly a little different, and not something I'd heard before. However. I've been in San Francisco for almost two years now. I've gotten used to being shocked. I've gotten used to having the realization that those two people walking close together? They're not just really good friends! People announcing that they're vegan doesn't seem foreign. I've spoken with homeless people and given them food. I recognize different homeless people. I'm a changed person.

But a few weeks ago when my friend was in town (the one I went to Walmart with) we went with another friend to a burger joint. When I came back from the bathroom I was a little confused. I asked my friend to go to the bathroom and tell me if what I thought I'd seen was correct.

Now what you have to know is that I never lived in a city before. Any time I was in any city, I went in, did whatever I was there for, and went home. The things I was in the city for were always very proper - work or jury duty (Fort Lauderdale), Broadway shows or work (Manhattan), visiting my brother (Boston or LA), etc. I certainly never wandered around any cities very much. Since moving to San Francisco, I've seen people crouch down on the sidewalk to smoke crack. I've seen hookers soliciting customers. I've seen crazy homeless people get in violent fights with themselves. One homeless guy came at me outside of my building one time, but he was seeing someone else when he looked into my eyes and eventually let go of me.

In that burger joint bathroom, there was that little metal container for tampons like in every public bathroom I've ever been in. But it had this weird diagram of something. (Now, one of my learning disabilities happens to be deciphering symbols. As in, I can't. When someone told me there was a symbol for pasting in WordPerfect, my first thought years ago was "Oh! That makes so much more sense! I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they had a picture of a pot of honey.") It looked to me like this bathroom diagram was indicating that the metal container was for needles. As in, junkies could throw their used needles in there. It really looked like a picture of a person and a needle. I thought maybe they kept a sharps container elsewhere in the restaurant. What the hell do I know about these things?

My friend, who has lived in SF for over a decade, came back from the bathroom laughing at me. It *was* for tampons. Not needles. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've since looked more carefully at the diagrams in other public bathrooms, and a lot of them have that same diagram. Guess I never noticed it before.