Knowing Your Surroundings: A Cautionary Tale

I went into the bathroom the other day... for obvious reasons (to psyche myself up in the mirror). And as I walked in, I made a subconscious note to myself that the bathroom was empty. No feet under the stalls, nobody else at the urinal. Not that this affects how I act in the bathroom (unless I'm going there to cry, of course). It's just good to know that kind of stuff. So after about 15 seconds in the bathroom, I heard what I determined to be the opening of a soda bottle. I don't know how you spell that, so I'll give it my best shot. It sounded like, "PSSHHT!"

Given the fact that I had already decided I was alone, and add the fact that someone was apparently opening a bottle of Coke after dead silence for 15 seconds, I thought I was being pranked. But then I smelled a very strong cinnamon odor. Like someone had just shoved a large piece of fermented Big Red up my nose. And I thought, "Great, I'm being drugged like someone in the movies." But I wasn't going out like some punk. So I counted to three in my head and on "Three!" I turned around as fast as I could on the spot and yelled, "Aha!" with my arms in the kung fu position (it's a good thing I'd already psyched myself up in the mirror). But no one was there. It was just an innocent-looking empty corner of the bathroom.

And I know what you're thinking... invisible ninjas. But you're wrong (because that's redundant - there's no such thing as a visible ninja). What it turned out to be was the automatic air freshener. Which I can assume is either set on a timer or only goes off when someone smelly walks by. Let's hope it was a timer.