I can't imagine what the waitress thought when she saw Brian in the ladies room. Actually, I felt bad about that. Brian had waited until the ladies room was empty. And I was supposed to be standing guard. But I was caught by surprise. How do you stop a lady from entering the ladies room, anyway? What do you say? 'Can you please wait until the man inside leaves?'

We'd been looking for a suitable place to stop for a while. A place with a nice restroom.

We were on our way aback to Berkeley from our stay at Sea Ranch. It was a two hour trip, and the roads were steep and winding. Brian, Jill and Tiffany the cat were in the back seat. Jill said that the turns were getting her nauseous. But we didn't pay much attention. I mean, what can you do about steep winding roads? "Open the window to let in some air," was all I could advise her to do.

Then Tiffany, who is usually a wonderful traveler, started to mew. The next thing we knew, she had spit up on herself, her traveling case and Jill. Poor Jill was more upset about the incident than Tiffany was.

"Don't worry," I tried to reassure her. "Tiffany's fine. Little creatures do this all the time. Babies take every opportunity they have to mess people up. And babies do it from both ends."

This made Jill feel a little better.

We were approaching Bodega Bay, where we would be looking for a place to stop for lunch. Jill could clean everything in the rest room. We passed a place that I thought looked perfect. The Breakers Cafe. We stopped.

Chuck got a table. Tiffany was concealed inside her black travel case. Jill was carrying the case and went with Brian and me to look for the rest room. I was hoping it would be unisex. It wasn't. Jill was still a bit upset. Brian offered to help with the cleaning. He would be extremely useful in case Tiffany managed to squeeze out of her case and needed to be captured.

Jill entered the ladies room with Brian a few steps behind. Someone was washing up. Brian stopped. He waited until the person left. Then, while I stood guard, he stepped into the ladies room in case Jill needed help.

Brian was still inside when a waitress dashed past me into the bathroom. She stared at Brian, reached into the stall to retrieve a pad she had left there, then dashed out again. She glared hostilely at me. I peeked in. Jill was cleaning the travel case. Brian was looking on.

When they were finished, we all trooped back to the table where Chuck was waiting patiently. I hoped we wouldn't be served by that waitress. We weren't. I couldn't be sure, but I thought our waiter glanced at us oddly. I caught a glimpse of the waitress, too. She seemed to be avoiding us. And if she occasionally looked in our direction, she seemed to glare.

I tried to imagine what she had thought had been going on in the ladies room.

I looked at Jill. As it happened, Jill was wearing a very short black dress and sexy sheer black stockings. She was dressed this way because she likes to wear all the outfits she packs, and this outfit was the only one she hadn't worn while we were at Sea Ranch.

I'd thought the outfit was a little inappropriate for cold wintry weather in a beach resort. But aside from wondering whether Jill was dressed warmly enough, I hadn't said anything. In a slinky outfit like that, maybe the waitress thought she was a prostitute.

Brian looked pretty wholesome. But why would he be hanging around in a ladies room? His behavior was so suspicious that I was actually surprised the waitress hadn't reported it.

And then there was me. Keeping guard outside. Worse and worse. It could have looked as if I were the pimp.

I felt as if everyone in the entire restaurant was looking at us strangely. I voiced my fears.

"I bet the waitress thought you had a quickie," I observed to Jill and Brian.

Jill seemed slightly embarrassed by my comment.

Brian just shrugged it off. "I wish we did," he said.

February, 2001
BB