Final word: Knock,knock,knocking on toilet doors

Went to a party the other week. It was a pretty good party. I had a good time, drinking too much wine and talking nonsense to people, as you do from time to time, when you go to a party. There was a band playing, which is always a nice thing and adds a kind of rough and ready edge to proceedings. I didn't dance to the band, because that's not my thing. None of which has anything to do with what I want to write about today, other than to establish the fact I was at a party.

No, what I want to dwell on for the next wee while (if you'll excuse the tragic pun) is something that was not at the party: a lock on the toilet door. Or, rather, if there was a lock on the toilet door then I couldn't blimmin' well find it and neither, apparently, could anyone else.

Lockable toilet doors should be, in my humble opinion, compulsory at parties. Actually, I think they should be compulsory in life, as a mandated part of any building consent. There should be ads on television, like there are for smoke-detectors, about the need for locks on toilet doors, in order to prevent the serious psychological damage and emotional scarring caused by an unwitting entrance at precisely the wrong moment.

A toilet without a lockable door at a party is a source of confusion and tension. You approach the door. The door is shut. But is there anyone doing their business the other side of the door? You can see the light is on, on the other side of the door, but it's a toilet at a party, what kind of moron would turn the light out at a party? So you wait - but for how long? You check for shadows under the door, for some sign of movement from within, but there's nothing discernable going on that you can see.

Which is when you start wondering if there's no one in there and that you're standing here, dying for a pee, looking like an idiot when there's actually no one in there. So you knock on the door - not aggressively but in a "hi, there's someone out here waiting" way. Of course the moment you do there are shrieks of laughter from the party, which is already pretty loud because of the band, so you can't tell if that was a "hang on" from inside the door, or did you imagine it amid the cacophony? Not good, not good.

So then you start wondering how soon before you can knock again, so that if there is someone in there you don't come across as pushy. The alternative, of course, is to take your life in your hands and open the door, but this is a plan fraught with the danger of eliciting an angry squawk from within (which means you then have to shut the door very quickly, hope the occupant didn't clock it was you, then run back into the body of the party and hang on until you summon the courage to try again, just so you don't get the Stare of Shame when they do emerge).

An even worse possibility is that you open the door to catch some bloke mid-wipe, so that by the time you've slammed the door shut again, the horrific image is indelibly seared on to your retina and you spend the rest of the party trying to drink to forget. (NB: this is not the time or place to discuss the ethical questions that surround doing Number 2s at a party. Yes, this is something that should ideally be left at home, out of consideration to the other guests, though sometimes you have no choice. Really, when you start thinking about it, it is something that should not be thought about. Ever. Sorry for bringing it up.)

Also the lack of a lock on the door is yet another example of the sexist nature of plumbing (interval at any theatre in the country, ladies - need I say any more?) because blokes can generally angle things so that as long as they're doing Number 1s, there's not a lot to see that's will cause embarrassment to both parties. And when I say "not a lot to see" I don't mean ... oh, never mind.

This is why women have it more sussed when dealing with the non-locking toilet at parties issue. Work as a team, one guarding the door while the other one goes. Then swap. And as long as the band isn't too loud, it's even possible to continue talking through the closed door. Bonus!

As for me, as a lone wolf I'm working on my own solution: carry a drill and a spare lock about your person to every party you attend, just in case. Now that's a man's way of dealing with the problem.