Bathroom Amusements

It was at a folk music festival many years ago. We set up 'camp' at a table under the main tent, where my mother stayed for most of the event, listening to the main stage entertainers, as the kids and I came and went to smaller workshops and to shop the vendors. We came back to her at one point and she was obviously suppressing some sort of serious laughing fit. We tried to get her to tell us what was up but she would not. Finally, a group of women at the adjacent table gathered their things and left. And the story came out. As she had been sitting there, one of the women left that group to use the porta-potties. When she returned, one of her companions asked how the potties were. The response was that there was not much of a line and they were pretty clean and they even had a shelf to hold your purse. Well, you know and I know and Mother knew and the kids knew that porta-potties do NOT have purse shelves and I bet you know or can image what object at the side of the porta-pottie this woman had mistaken for a purse holder. My kids thought it was about the funniest thing they had ever heard, and it became a family joke when grandma went to a restroom to ask her when she came back if there was purse holder in there. We all just thought it was the most hilarious thing. So years, many years later, my son and I stop at a rest area on the way to Milwaukee and guess what is in my restroom stall? Yes, a purse holder. Of course, my son is going to completely think I am lying to him, continuing the joke. So I MUST take a picture of it, and in this day when nearly every cell phone has a built-in camera, why, I could actually DO that. Of course, the ridiculousness of the fact that I am in a rest area restroom taking pictures of the accoutrements is not lost on me, and I am snickering uncontrollably. What if someone comes in? Can I convince them I am a rest facility reviewer for the Wisconsin Travel Association? So of course, I come out chortling and my son asks what is going on and I tell him there was purse holder and he give me the "Yeah, right. How gullible do you think I am?" and so I pop open the phone and show him the pictures. Yeah, it's a cheap running joke in our family, but this time, I have pictures.