“Disgusting” Use of the Ladies’ Room
Maybe Donald Trump knows a secret.
I take note that Donald Trump recently took exception to Hillary Clinton using the ladies room during the Democratic debate. He spoke rhetorically to the crowd in front of him claiming not to know exactly where she went. Then he owned up. “I know where she went. It’s disgusting!” he said, shivering a little. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he added, despite having brought up the subject only a few minutes before. “No, it’s too disgusting.” He waggled his tongue a little and made throw-up noises.
I think of myself as being a man of the world. I am a person of advanced years, and I have seen many things. As a psychiatrist, I have shared many other people’s experiences. But I have trouble imagining anything disgusting going on in a ladies room short of, perhaps, someone sticking her head in the toilet. Hillary could not have done that and maintained her careful coiffure. Then, I thought to myself, perhaps I am not as experienced as I thought I was.
The last time I had a serious discussion about what went on in the ladies (girls’) room I was eight or nine years old. I don’t remember much of the conversation, naturally, but I think I would have remembered somebody expressing disgust; and I don’t. One even younger boy, who resembled Donald Trump by coincidence, his hair coming down in front of his eyes and at the same time sticking up behind, whispered something dirty—but I don’t remember exactly what. He snickered. We all snickered. There was some allusion to girl’s panties, which set off chuckling all around. Rather than disgust, I would say the principle feeling was of titillation—although, of course, no such word occurred to me at the time.
I myself have never been in a ladies room, at least not when there was a lady in it. No lady patient of mine has ever hinted at anything untoward going on in the ladies room; but perhaps all these years these women have been systematically keeping something from me—in order to spare my feelings, perhaps. As Freud once observed, “Who knows what women want?” I bet he never went into a ladies room either. Maybe women engage in some disgusting ritual that they have sworn from the earliest age to keep secret from all men—maybe something to do with snakes.
I expect that Donald Trump has considerable experience with ladies rooms, since there are a lot of them in the Trump Tower, the Trump Castle and all the other Trump buildings. He’s probably stumbled by accident into hundreds of them. I can see him clearly in my mind’s eye hurriedly exiting the ladies rooms, waving his arms about frantically. “Disgusting! Disgusting!” he cries, hurrying away down the hallway. Maybe Donald Trump has intruded into some sort of secret rite—which just might, I think, involve squishy foods, like an éclair, or sticky buns, or something else disgusting. Donald Trump may know something that the rest of us do not know.
Suppose Donald Trump is right and Hillary Clinton is doing something disgusting in the ladies room. If she is elected President she will have unfettered access to all the ladies rooms in the White House, that hallowed place that saw Abraham Lincoln sign the Emancipation Proclamation and Teddy Roosevelt carry a big stick! Come to think of it, she has probably already used all the ladies rooms when Bill was President. BUT IF SHE IS ELECTED IN HER OWN RIGHT, THERE WILL BE NO STOPPING HER! (c) Fredric Neuman. Author of “The Wicked Son.”