Buckle up for another unhinged story time. Now, as I’ve said before, I used to work at a sex shop. At one point I had three roommates and we all worked the same dildo slinging retail job and lived together. It was extremely sitcom.
Now, as you’d imagine, living with three other people who also talked about sex toys all day created a microcosm of people who were all extremely comfortable around sex toys and related topics. No one left dirty toys laying around but seeing things left in showers or showing off a new purchase was just a Tuesday.
After some life upheavals I ended up living with one of those roommates again, just me and her. For the sake of this story let’s call her Betty. Betty and I shared a two bedroom, and the layout was all the common spaces were an open floor plan and then one hallway formed a T, with my room and bathroom to the left and Betty’s to the right.
Well, one day my cousin calls me up. He’s coming to town for a visit and I offer to put up him, his wife, and their more… sheltered friend. (Unbeknownst to me there was a full Briefing for this girl before she met me so that I didn’t overwhelm her with my blasé attitudes towards- well, most things).
They drove in from two states over and it was a long drive. I had to work and couldn’t greet them or spend the first day together. So I told them to come grab my key so they could all shower off and settle in before me.
I arrived home later that night and found the atmosphere a little awkward at first. Things quickly warmed up and I charmed their friend, impressing my cousin with my immaculate respect for personal comfort levels. We had a lovely evening. By the time we all said goodnight I’d dismissed the initial tension as being tired after a long drive.
The next day we all decided to go to the zoo. I’m a morning shower person, but I let them go first while I made breakfast. After breakfast it was my turn and I hopped in the shower.
Midway through my eyes fixed on it. A little pink sex toy, sitting brazenly on the rim of the tub. Oh no, I thought. This was why things had been awkward yesterday! I left out a personal object because I’d literally forgotten to ever put them away by that point.
What I felt wasn’t embarrassment per se, because that emotion had been utterly eradicated by that point. Rather it was a deep shame that I’d leave out something that might make a guest feel uncomfortable. They told me their friend was sheltered and I had left out a sex toy, it was the epitome of rudeness!
I rejoined everyone and said, “I am so sorry! I didn’t realize I’d left that in the shower, that was so rude of me!”
My guests all exchanged a Look. I looked from my cousin to his wife, she glanced toward their friend, and their friend looked at my cousin. No one would look at me.
“Well…” my cousin finally said, “you didn’t tell us which room was yours yesterday.”
I blinked in confusion, Betty’s room and bathroom were basically just like mine.
“When we got here,” his wife continued, “we went to the other side first. In Betty’s bathroom.”
Reader, Betty’s bathroom.
Had been absolutely covered in dildos. Sex toys of all shapes and sizes covered every flat surface, the tub rim, the sink, the shelves. Wall to wall sex toys. Apparently Betty was doing a spring cleaning and had left her entire extensive collection out to air dry.
These three weary travelers had opened a door to the dildo dimension and had no idea how to react. To this day I have no idea what context clues they used to figure out Betty’s room from mine.
But when I’d come home they were lost in the sex toy shell shock, presumably wondering how they could ever talk about it with someone who felt it was okay to leave out every sex toy they own when expecting company in some kind of bizarre power play.
By the time they finished telling me about this we were all laughing so hard we were in tears.
“When we saw your bathroom with one little pink toy it was so discreet we didn’t even care!” They told me.
After my cousin and his crew had gone on their way I finally told Betty the whole story. She listened with eyes growing wider and wider and finally burst out, “That’s why they were so weird when I got home!!”
