Last week I was in a busy train station restroom in Connecticut. It gets worse. It was loud with air dryers and automatic flushing and a woman singing the hymn “Joy to the World.”

The woman in the next stall screams. “Ohhhh no no no no no no!"

I ask if she’s ok but I have a good guess what happened.

“I dropped my wallet in the toilet!"

I yell, “DON’T MOVE.”

What, she says

“I’M COMING IN!” What the hell am I doing

I explain that she can’t move because the toilet will flush automatically.

WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME!

It’s like you're on a landmine, I explain. I go through my bag looking for latex gloves.

Now most of the contents of MY bag are on the bathroom floor. I hand her the gloves under the stall door and she asks if I can do it. She’s scared to move.

We’re supposed to switch places? Am I about to crawl under the stall door to try this? Yes, I am.

What exactly did you drop in the toilet, I ask, as I rethink this whole plan.

She starts to yell about her wallet and maybe her phone and oh my god then the automatic flush drowns out her voice. What was the FIRST thing I told her? The other woman is now humming “Joy to the World” because she can’t remember the lyrics.

Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy

Come on. Everyone knows THAT PART

The woman in the stall finally opens the door. She is furious with me. Did you lose anything of value? “Only my wallet,” she barks. She thinks this is my fault! I want to tell her that my family became rich after my dad designed the automatic flush system.