But after looking at the first sign, I assumed I knew what the other was, and that’s how I ended up walking into the women’s restroom yesterday.

In most locations in our office, as in many buildings, restrooms are grouped together: there will be a women’s restroom to one side of a staircase of bank of elevators and a men’s restroom to the other. Yesterday I walked into an elevator lobby and saw a sign next to one door, marking it as a women’s restroom. I could see there was a restroom sign on the other side of the elevators too, so I walked over and walked right in.

Right away something felt wrong. There were no urinals that I could see. But on the far side from me, back toward the elevators, there was a space I couldn’t see, where the elevator shafts blocked my view. Maybe the urinals were over there.

As I started to walk that way, though, something else began to dawn on me… if I’m heading back toward the elevator shafts, and this bathroom is so wide, then wouldn’t that be…? Yes, sure enough, that space just contained another door back into the hallway, the same doorway with the female pictogram I’d passed by on my way to what I thought was the men’s room. This was still the women’s restroom, which turns out to have two doors opening into it from the same hallway. I quickly exited, and fortunately no one was inside or outside at the time to see.

So today I’ve looked very carefully at the little stick people on the walls, to be sure I’m going where I’m supposed to.