The Song

The woman in the stall next to me is singing along with the piped in music. I’m exhausted and distracted, so it takes me a minute to realize this is what’s happening, but when I finally register the unexpected sound, I find myself smiling.

My shoulders go down, and I start to actually listen as she – quietly but enthusiastically – jaunts along. The words aren’t in English… I listen for a few more seconds. Arabic? Yes, Arabic! A major American airport is piping Arabic muzak into the women’s bathroom in terminal 4 (and, presumably, everywhere else), and the woman in the stall next to me is happily singing along. I chuckle.

We’re on our way home from vacation. Yesterday, the first flight of our three flights was delayed on the tarmac for nearly four hours. Once we were in the air, we learned that they had a grand total of three cheese plates and a few cans of Pringles available to sustain passengers for the four-hour flight. I’m pretty sure we had devoured every package of cookies and pretzels on board by the time we landed, after midnight, in a city we had not planned to stay in. We’d survived the curt customs officer, fed the kids from the one kiosk still open, trudged to a hotel, slept a few hours, waited in a wildly understaffed security line, and made it to our rescheduled flight just as it was boarding. Our amazing vacation already seemed far away. But here, now, a woman is singing in the public bathroom.

I stand, and the automatic system flushes the toilet. Briefly, I am grateful that I do not have a child or two in the stall with me, that no one has suddenly burst into tears because of the unexpectedly loud sound. I remember the twisting required to take care of multiple people in one bathroom stall while blocking the sensor with one hand. At the time, it was all-consuming, but now, remembering, I’m smiling again.

I’m washing my hands when the woman opens the stall door, still humming under her breath. In the mirror, she flashes me a happy smile. “I love that song,” she says. The janitor, busy to one side, replies, “Mm-hmm. I heard you singing. You have a nice voice.”

We finish washing at the same time, and my neighbor uses her paper-towelled finger to press the green happy face of the “How are we doing?” doohickey above the sinks. “This is the best bathroom in the terminal,” she says to the janitor. “I always come here. You’re doing a great job.” Now we’re all smiling. I press the green button, too.

“Such a great song,” she says, and she walks out of the bathroom. Behind her, silently, I agree: a great song.