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If you should happen to be a woman of the single persuasion interested in changing your marital or boyfriendal situation, I would recommend NOT doing so! visiting your local Home Depot, where men abound in such numbers But seriously. I wouldn't. that I began to wonder if women were even allowed in that crazy place.

What I would not so much do, however, is go there to buy a toilet seat.

Or at least perhaps not announce it to the strapping young man at the door who asks if he could help you.

But what exactly was I gonna do, say, "Oh, no thank you. Just browsing?"

In a Home Depot? I don't think so.

So my mind froze and, well... Well, I told the truth.

And then his mind froze - probably because it was busy being assaulted by images of toilet seats and what people do on them that might require replacing them - What I do on them, maybe? Was he thinking that? Oh, dear LORD! - and he drew a blank.

He froze for so long that another guy saw him standing there dumbstruck and came over to help, concerned perhaps I'd broken the floor model greeter. "Is something wrong?" he asked. He looked at me, though, like I was the one who might have done something wrong. Me!

"Uh..." Guy One stammered, sneaking nervous peeks at me. "She... she... she needs a toilet seat." He said the last really, really fast, like that would make it all just go away.

"Well, not to USE!" I exclaimed, slightly defensive.

Because that was helpful information.

"I mean, I mean... It's not for me, I mean. Well, it is, but not NOW. I mean... Oh, you know what? Could you just tell me where they are?"

"Yeah, sure," Guy Two says, but he looks awfully suspicious.

Or maybe like I'm crazy. Probably that was it, now that I think of it. Crazy.

A crazy lady talking way too much - She broke my new guy! Doesn't she know we come here to get away from the wimmens! And here she starts in blabberin' 'bout how someone in her house who shall remain nameless but he doesn't sit down to pee, if you know what I mean, whizzes all over the toilet seat all the livelong day and it's stained something terrible and she's having company so now she needs a new one? Just send your husband next time, lady, like the rest of your folk do! Haven't you noticed there are no other women in here? NONE. Zero. Zip. And all the men are really big and tattooed? I think you all girl-kind are allowed in for one hour every Sunday. That's it. And only in the paint section. You pick out something pretty and all 'Ooooh, pink!' and then you leave. Got it?

"Lar-ry!" his voice booms down the huuuuuge aisle to a man standing way at the other end. "COULD YOU POINT THE TOILET SEATS OUT TO THIS LADY HERE?"

And to the 25 or so guys whose keen interest level I am gauging based on just how fast their heads whipped around, thankyouverymuch.

I try to put a brave face on it. "Hi, boys..." I say brightly, all chipper and friendly-like as I walk past, very matter-o'-fact, like it's no big deal at all that I am about to buy a toilet seat. I hold my head up high and march down that aisle of shame to get my seat. Because I am a grown-up who can buy these things. But I am so going to kill that damn that Boy when I get home! The stuff I am forced to do because of him!

And then...

Do you happen to know just how many toilet seats they sell in the Home Depot?

Rough estimate? 65. All lined up and waiting for you to pick one out.

While assorted men walk past you in the aisle, and you pray little prayers in your head that the right seat is the very first one you see and is right th-... Oh, my God, 50 bucks? 50 bucks for a toilet seat?! NO WAY. Are they smoking crack?!

Sadly, it comes to pass that you said that last part aloud.

Just as someone of that big male and tattooed persuasion is walking by.

"Hm?" he says, looking a tad alarmed that a woman is talking to him. In his sacred place where he comes to be alone. She probably wants my big manly tattoed advice, he thinks, puffing up, and turning to me to solve this toilet seat problem the stupid lady seems to be having.

I am so not going to talk about toilet seats with some random man I don't even know.

Shoo! My hands make the gesture before my head can stop them. I just actually shoo-ed Godzilla in the aisle of Home Depot. "I mean, I mean... I'm good. All set! Yep. That's me. All set. Thank you, though."

He gives me the same exact look the second guy at the door did, and ambles off. I turn my head so I won't see in case he starts doing the spinny-finger-around-the-ear thing. There is only so much humiliation one can take in a day. And I am NOT going to be called crazy by some guy too stupid to even be wearing sleeves in 50 degree weather. (As an aside... Hello, global warming? I want my polar bear donations back!)

I finally grab my new seat, and carry it, in all its HUGE and growing HUGER by the moment glory, All.The.Way.Back to the front of the store.

Past the same 25 guys still standing there - probably in shock, for all I know - ("Hi, Boys!") past the two guys still at the door ("OH, I SEE YOU FOUND THE TOILET SEATS! THAT'S GREAT!") - wondering if I should just sling the sucker around my neck like a life preserver and wear it like some kind of big Scarlet Letter (T?) of shame, and head straight to the self-check out aisle so that there can be absolutely, positively no further discussion about any of this, with anyone. Ever again.

Only now some guy is running at me.

"Hey!" he yells.

Oh, my God, did I STEAL IT? Just kill me now, God. Please. Please! Why? Why me? I would be the only woman in history to go to jail for stealing a toilet seat. Just end it now, God!

But it's just the guy from the toilet seat aisle.

"Hey!" he lands right in front of me. "Ya' wanna go out?" he asks.

Really, God. Same request. Any minute now. I'm waiting.... Please. Just do it! I'll close my eyes. You do it fast.

God is apparently busy today, so I am left to my own devices.

"Huh?" I manage. And I am soooo not going to church on Sunday. Take that, You.

"Yeah. Ya' wanna go out?"

"Oh. I... oh. Oh. Um. Yeah. No. I... I... I, um, don't think so. Gotta go put this in, doncha know," I say, waving my new seat around in the air.

Seriously.

So anyway, like I was saying: If you're interested in a guy, that one might still even be there. Tell him I'm sorry I dropped the seat on his foot when I fled, and I hope he wasn't too badly hurt.

And, um... If you don't mind too much, could you bring the seat back with you if you do go? Cuz there's no way I can manage going in that crazy place again.

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The folks over at humor-blogs must know some good on-line places where you can order these things and have them come in a plain brown paper wrapper.