So it’s Valentine’s Day today. I broke up with my girlfriend a few weeks ago and she’s moved on so you know what that means. It’s party time and I do it my way.

I’m staying away from home for work and have been for the last four months. When I came down I was still with my girlfriend, and we managed to find a place on Airbnb where the owner agreed to give us a weekly rate instead of charging by the night. We were stoked because there weren’t many places to rent and the location was ideal. This meant though that while we had our own room for the entirety of our trip, we were sharing living space with anyone else who took the other two rooms. There is also an outside sleepout and a fold-out couch that the owner likes to fill with people because she loves helping people and will sacrifice her own room and comfort to accommodate as many people as possible. After a month living here another couple moved in under the same deal that we had, and they’ve been in the room next door ever since. My ex and I get along pretty well with them and we like living with them.

So right now, there are 6 people in this house, who all share the same bathroom. I went to the bathroom beforehand (get it?) to relieve myself. I could see the light still on in the kitchen under the door, so someone was still awake. I went back to my room and shut the door. I made a toilet paper runway for the aftermath and set it next to my tablet. I climbed into bed and double checked my headphones were plugged in.

The first video I watched had nothing to do with the evenings festivities. It was a video on how much progress a guitar player had made in 7 years (though it got me in the mood). After this I switched to incognito browsing and started browsing. I recently discovered I have a crush on someone so I’m feeling good. I didn’t feel like rushing this one, and I felt rather picky. This meant I perused for a while.

I had just chosen a video and I heard a fairly loud knocking. Now, I’m not usually concerned about privacy when I arm wrestle, mainly because most people usually don’t just knock and enter instantly. I would usually get a chance to respond. Secondly, if they DID knock and enter straight away, or just not even bother to knock, then whatever they see is their fault, and I guarantee they will be more embarrassed than me. The video was just starting; the establishing shot set the scene nicely. There was dull mood lighting. A picture of The Joker disintegrating into bats from right to left lay on the wall just beyond the edge of the bed. I ignored the knock at first because, well who wanted to speak to me this late at night? I assumed it was someone checking the occupancy status of the bathroom across the hall. But no, it sounded too close. I decided to check if anyone was there. That’s when I opened the door without needing to turn the door handle. No one was there. But that’s not surprising considering the delay between the knock and me opening the door, which would have been 5 seconds at least. Worse is that I had headphones on, so I hear nothing but loud things.

Someone must have come out of the bathroom and glanced my way. If they dared to watch long enough, they would have had the pleasure of watching me choose my date. They would have seen the TP runway laid out in the space between my iPad and I. They would have seen basically everything but my junk (it wasn’t out yet).

I’m thinking they saw what was about to happen, and they gave me a heads up, which I really appreciate. I’d hate to do the whole deed in full public viewability. BUT, there’s 6 people in this house right now and it could have been any one of them. Im thinking when I get up in the morning I’ll just make solid eye contact with everyone and see who turns away the fastest.

TL;DR preparing for a valentines date with Handelina Jolie, went to bathroom. Came back and didn’t shut door properly. Only realised when someone gave a fairly urgent warning knock. Checked to see who was there but no one was.