Closed for Business, Open for Bladders

I was working in a mall restaurant — closed, lights down, dreams of retirement faint — when someone shows up asking to use the restroom. The mall literally had a bathroom three feet away, but hey, human nature: if the place with the grease trap says yes, you say yes back. So we let her in. No grand plan, no spreadsheet, just the kind of mercy that gets you banned from the break room for two weeks (did I say that?).

Reddit tried to diagnose: one commenter asks if it was “typed via text-to-speech or were you drunk?” — brutal, but accurate: some posts read like confessions or bad karaoke. Another wanted us to yell through the door next time. Yell through a bathroom door? What are we, motivational speakers for the incontinent? Then someone asked, “Did she clap?” — which is the perfect image: a closed restaurant, a woman relieved, and no one gives a standing ovation. I like to picture a tiny, soggy curtain call.

This isn’t malicious compliance — it’s malicious hospitality. We opened for a bladder, not a policy. The real marvel: rules collapse the second someone needs to pee. In the future we’ll have a sign: “Closed—but our humanity is on a different schedule.” Mic drop. Or at least — towel drop.