My name is Lu. Every now and then, I need the loo.
It doesn’t always go as planned. On this page, I’ll document every single unusual Lu loo visit from my life.
- 2nd December 2023: backfilled with many times I can remember. missed out loads but it’s a good start.
- 3rd December 2023: remembered and added the burp castle tale.
- 9th December 2023: added two loo lu tales from this week.
- 13th December 2023: added a flood-related tale.
- 16th December 2023: added the first audio entry.
- 20th December 2023: added a new entry from work.
- 28th December 2023: added today’s lu loo tale.
I was at a curry place with some old school friends. I asked the server where the loo was. He walked me upstairs, and walked past the mens loo. I pushed open the door.
In a panic, he turned around and reached out his hand.
“Madame, no!!!” he called. “That’s the mens!”
I nodded at him in silence.
There was an awkward pause.
He made a squirming noise and ran away into the kitchen.
I went to the pub with my dad. I ordered a pint. He ordered a diet coke. The bartender instinctively handed me the diet coke and my dad the beer.
“Oh, the beer is for me actually” I said.
The bartender laughed and handed it to me, saying, “It’s because normally women just order girls drinks like diet coke, and gin. Not beer.”
We stood still.
Shock and realisation grew on the bartender’s face. “Oh no no I didn’t mean-“ he said.
“I didn’t mean you have a girls drink, sir” he said to my dad.
Later on, I went to the loo. The bartender saw me walk out of the mens. He stared as if he’d just seen a ghost.
I met up with some old school friends. One of them seemed very uncomfortable around me. He kept interrupting conversations I was having with other people.
“But is it Lu or Luke? I don’t understand?”
“But are you a man or a woman?”
“You look like a man to me.”
When I was queuing for the loo, he joined the queue behind me. He jokingly asked me, “Are you gonna go in the womens?” I said no.
I was at a meetup with a friend. I told her I was going to the loo. She said she’d come too.
I started walking to the mens loo. She walked with me. I didn’t know where the womens loo was. I was pretty sure it wasn’t next to the mens. But hey, she was walking with me, so maybe she knew where it was.
As we were walking, she stopped and said “Wait, where is the loo?”
I pointed to the mens loo and said “I don’t know.”
There was an awkward silence.
I said, “Depends which one.”
“Oh!…” she said, before walking away.
I was at a coding meetup and I went to the loo. A bouncer tried to get in my way to stop me going in the mens.
I awkwardly smiled and said, “It’s fine.”
He stood back, a bit puzzled. I walked past.
Later on, he found me at the bar and apologised for thinking I was a girl.
I was catching a drink with some old school friends. I was sharing my frustrations and fears about toilets with them.
One friend was trying to explain to me “But legally, they can’t stop you.”
I think he was trying to reassure me.
I went looking for a gender-neutral loo at the Southbank Centre in London. I found one that was just a ladies loo with a tiny trans symbol next to it. I felt too uncomfortable to go in because it wasn’t clearly marked as gender-neutral, and it had a long corridor you had to walk down to get in. If someone was coming the other way, I’d have to squeeze past them.
I went to the gents loo instead. As I was walking in, an old man tapped me repeatedly on the shoulder, shouting “Hey! Hey!”
I walked very fast forwards into one of the cubicles.
When I was in the cubicle, I waited there for a long time, to make sure he was gone before I went out.
I couldn’t find a gender neutral toilet in the building I was in. So I walked outside, and went to the theatre next door. I found a gender neutral toilet there and used that instead.
When I walked out, two women saw me and shook their head at me. I think they thought I used the disabled loo. I don’t think they knew what the trans symbol on the door meant.
I was at a pub in London with some work friends. I went to the mens loo.
When I walked out of the cubicle, there were two men queuing up. One of them looked at me and said “What the fuck”.
I was at Kings Cross Station and I needed the loo.
I went into the disabled loo. When I walked out, an older man was standing there, shaking his head at me.
Then I walked past the giant queue of people at the J K Rowling shop.
I was at a pub with some old school friends. I bought a drink from the server at the bar. He referred to me as “sir”. Later on, I ordered another drink from a different server. He referred to me as “madame”.
I went to the loo three times that evening. The first time, I walked past the first server, so I went into the gents. The second time, I walked past the second server, so I went into the womens. The third time, I walked past both of them, so I went into the disabled loo.
I was at a tech conference. I went to the mens loo at the same time as a friend. We walked out the loo together, at the same time a man walked in. He gave me the most cartoonish double-take I’ve ever seen.
My friend found it hilarious.
When we moved into the new office, I noticed that there was a womens loo, a mens loo, and a disabled loo. But the disabled loo was always locked.
Day after day, it stayed locked. So I went into the mens each time.
One day, I got the guts to open the disabled loo from the outside. Nobody was in there. I started using that one.
I think it was locked because the flusher was slightly broken. It was a bit fiddly, but it worked fine.
After a while, the disabled loo got completely locked. They put an out-of-order sign on the door too.
So I started using the mens again.
When I walked out the loo, a young man from a neighbouring office walked in, and immediately stopped. He looked panicked and said “I’m so sorry”.
I watched as he stepped out and went into the womens loo instead.
I was at a tech conference and I told my friend that I was going to the loo. He said he would come too.
I walked towards the womens loo, and he kept following.
I pointed out the toilet sign to him. He stopped, and said, “Oh yeah”.
I was in a bar called Burp Castle and I needed the loo. I went into the mens loo, and it had loads of cool stickers & art on its walls.
My partner told me it was the same in the womens too. So I went into the womens to see it. It was cool.
I was in a pub after work and I needed the loo. I noticed that I looked quite feminine that day, so I wasn’t sure which one to go in. Both loos were on opposite sides of the pub, so I couldn’t just pick out the emptiest one either.
I wanted to get an honest opinion. I didn’t think my colleagues would tell me the cold hard truth. So I went to the bar and pretended I didn’t know where the loos were.
“Could you point me to the loo please?” I asked.
“Sure. That way. Go down the stairs.” he said.
He pointed me to the womens. I went to the womens.
I was in an art gallery and I needed the loo. I went to the gents loo. When I walked out, a young man was walking in. He saw me, and looked surprised. He turned around, then turned around again. He looked up at the sign, and watched me as I walked away.
My colleague read these Lu loo tales and found them funny.
After a meeting, I needed the loo. I told her I was just “popping to the loo”. She gave me a grin and followed me there.
When I went into the mens, she jokingly let out an audible gasp. And then walked into the womens.
I was in a pub and I needed the loo. I tried to do my usual trick: I asked the bartender to ‘point me’ to the loo. He sounded annoyed and sarcastically said “Do you see the sign?” while pointing to the toilets sign.
Unfortunately, both the mens and womens loos were at the same place, so my trick didn’t work.
A group of loud, drunken lads walked into the mens so I didn’t want to go in that one.
Luckily, there was a disabled loo there. It needed a radar key, but there was already a radar key in it! So I opened it and went in.
But the door didn’t lock from the inside. I wondered if it wasn’t locking because there was still a radar key in it. So I went back outside, took the radar key out, and then went back inside.
But unfortunately, it still didn’t lock. So I went out again, and put the radar key back in the lock, and then I went into the womens loo.
There were only two cubicles inside. One said “engaged”. The other one said “vacant”. I pushed the door of the “vacant” one, but it was actually “engaged”. The lock was just broken.
I freaked out and went back to my group at the table.
My friend offered to come to the loo with me. She stood outside the disabled loo as my “guard” while I went to the loo.
Later on, I needed the loo again. My friend came with me again. But unfortunately, the disabled loo had been locked, and the radar key removed. So we went into the womens loo together. Luckily, both cubicles were empty.
She suggested calling this Lu loo tale “The guard”.
I was in a pub and I needed the loo. The ‘point me’ strategy worked here before, so I asked the bartender to point me to the loo.
As I was asking, he was gearing up to point me to the womens. But when I said “loo”, my voice slipped and went lower. He looked a bit confused, then said “The mens are over there, and the womens are over there.”
I went to the womens loo. None of the cubicle doors were shutting. I left the loo.
I went back 5 minutes later, and the single non-broken cubicle was free. I used that one. Still, you had to push it quite hard to get it locked.
When I was in there, I heard someone open the door to one of the other cubicles and say “Oh shit, sorry!”
Someone else said that there had been a flood down here, and now the doors don’t shut.
I waited for the chatting to stop, and then I left the loo.
The guy I was with told me that he thinks I pass.
I was at work, and I needed the loo. The disabled loo is still out of order.
When I was walking to the loo, I saw someone go into the mens, so I went in the womens.
Later on, I needed the loo again. When I was walking there, I saw someone go into the womens, so I went in the mens.
I was at a pub and I needed the loo. I looked at myself in a reflection and I wasn’t sure which one to go in. I asked my friends at the table and one friend suggested that I go into the ‘vixens’.
I walked to the bar and I could see the womens quite hidden in the corner, so I went to that one.
Later on, I needed the loo again. I went to the womens but both cubicles were engaged. I decided to ask where the mens was instead.
I walked over to a server to ask him, and he thought I was trying to walk past him instead. He said “sorry, love” to me.
From the way he said it, I assumed that his ‘love’ was a gendered use of the word, as opposed to the more gender-neutral use you get from some people.
I went back to the table, and went back to the womens loo later. I watched as one woman walked away from the loos, and took that as my chance to go.
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