BARBECUE PIT TOILET or A PRINCESS PEES AMONG STRANGERS

My family and I are touring a castle-like museum: long vast halls, marble floors. I find a bathroom—with a line, because only one person at a time can use it. Impatient, I wander off, finding no line when I return. The bathroom is downstairs, reached by a rather narrow brick stairwell with a sharp turn to the right. The room is huge, and in its center is a toilet like no other. I’m facing a big brick barbecue pit, so high that a step is provided. I investigate. Indeed the toilet has a grate for a seat, set in flush with the brick, and underneath it a 9 x 13-inch white enamel baking dish to catch the pee. I am exceedingly leery. But that’s the deal, and my bladder is bursting.

I am wearing a princess costume, a voluminous, floor-length, maroon-and-gold gown with a train. (Which soon comes in handy.)

Surprise! Three people come in to use the bathroom, two women and a man. I am about to ascend to the throne but stop for a show-and-tell about the strange system. I also mention my surprise to see them because, earlier at least, this was a one-person experience. Apparently my royal masquerade doesn’t extend to indignant confrontation, because I think, “Well, there wasn’t a gatekeeper.” Here they are.

Anyway, I have to go so badly that I reluctantly proceed. The whole experience is becoming more comfortable because the people are so friendly, so accepting. They proceed to position themselves in a row behind the pit. The structure’s back lip, three bricks high, is no real separation (well, perhaps for splashes). Arranging myself on the grate with a long princess gown—and train—takes a while. I use the time to explain I’m here with my granddaughter, who is wearing a princess gown that I made.

Throughout this dream, if the trio speaks, I don’t remember it. Murmurs only.

No matter that the people are behind me, not in front, I am quite self-conscious when the flow begins . . . on and on and on and on and on. Very embarrassing. I try to stop the stream with no success . . . on and on and on. Finally, I’m finished.

However, I must then get off and flush, equally weird because there’s no flush handle, nothing but the grate. On the front of the toilet barbecue, though, is a big disk like those that open doors for wheelchair access. Press it, and a mechanism pushes the whole pan back, tilting it to drain into a hole. Urine be gone. How I know this is . . . impossible, but I explain it to the observers with a big pan of my steaming yellow pee between us. They stay where they are. I press the disk: Voilá, it works! We all marvel at the mechanism. 2016

And who wouldn’t? A member of my dream group asked a question that might enter others’ minds. What about your underwear? That simply did not figure in this (detailed) dream. The answer is: What underwear?