“My version of an Irish exit has an air of deception to it, because it includes my asking loudly, “Where’s the bathroom?” and making theatrical looking-around gestures like a lost foreign tourist. But then, instead of finding the bathroom, I sneakily grab my coat and leave.”

“My landlord is blase' about the crisis and hands me a newspaper. It isn't for reading. This evening, I decide, I'm not going to be Cuban. I grab my passport from the closet and make for the nearest hotel bathroom.”

“After I go to the bathroom, I leave my hands wet as proof I washed them.”

“I don't use airplane bathrooms. As a rule. And I really don't like breaking rules. (It's kind of one of my rules.) I mean, if I'm going to plummet to my death, it's not going to be with my pants around my ankles.”

“Once, I asked my mom why stars shine. She said they werenight-lights, so the angels could find their way around in Heaven.But when I asked my dad, he started talking about gas, and somehowI put it all together and figured that the food God served causedmultiple trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

“I look around for someplace to sit, but of course there's nowhere. It's the bathroom in the math wing, not the bathroom in Blair Waldorf's house.”