This is a "Potty Emergency!"

 We’ve covered the fact that our triplet stroller is unusually long and very super-huge, making public appearances very awkward.

We decided to try an outing to the museum last summer while in New Orleans visiting family. 

Being babies, of course the need arises to have to change them at some point and of course it's never in a convenient and appropriate place. 

This time it was smack dab in the dividing line between the Ansel Adams exhibit and the Hurricane Katrina Photography exhibit. 

Now there was this very nice leather-looking chaise-lounge piece of furniture in the middle area that looked very inviting. 

But, being in a part of the museum that was as quiet as a church sanctuary due to the content and seriousness of the subject matter, I had decided that this was NOT the place to change our panties and britches.My aunt and I decided to demurely head for the nearest restroom. NOMA appears to have been built quite a long time ago, as the handicap allocations are mostly out of place (they are there, but hard to access) and the bathrooms would reflect this, unfortunately. 


Now, I have three tiny five month olds that look like newborns all screeching because their tiny hiney’s were being chaffed by their diaper contents in a very nice museum in City Park. 


I turned the corner, heading into the door to the lady’s room, following my aunt, only to feel like I was in the larger part of a hallway that appears to get narrower the further you walk down it. 


My aunt very graciously tried to hold the door to the bathroom open for us, but it involved a turn, and what appeared to be ANOTHER door just to get inside. 


I had to make her move so that I wouldn’t run her over with my over three foot long stroller while attempting to negotiate this latest gauntlet.

After much scooching and scraping and squeaking my rubber wheels, I managed to finagle the stroller into the bathroom only to find that once inside, we couldn’t move. 


There just wasn’t enough room for the stroller, my aunt and myself inside the bathroom, much less the poor innocent bystander lady who had just exited the stall as we entered, thus blocking her into the back corner of the bathroom. 


Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles… We managed to get the stroller at an angle as to free the poor trapped lady stuck in the corner, however it forced my aunt into a stall. 


I very quickly changed the perfectly synchronized dirty diapers (triplets tend to do EVERYTHING together) and set out to try and exit the restroom before some poor souls tried to fit in with us.


I haven’t any clue how a handicapped person would get in much less out of there.

I decided that the next diaper change would just have to be out in the open, for all to see. I tried to be discreet, I wanted to be nice, but it just wasn’t possible. 


Coincidentally, our next diaper change would occur in the presence of the museum’s Salvador Dali piece and Picasso painting. 


It’s nice to have a little culture with our fresh panties and breeches!

Please don’t think ill of me. Yes, I am guilty of having to make use of the handicap ramps and entrances to many places out of necessity, even though I am not handicapped. 


I also can be found in the handicap stall of the bathroom at the mall or toy- store. If it’s any consolation, we don’t fit in the handicap stall any better than we fit into that tiny bathroom in the New Orleans Museum of Art. 


Its very difficult for me to go potty anywhere out and about because of that super huge extra-long stroller. 


So if you’re handicapped, and have to wait in line in the bathroom for your stall only to find it occupied by four very un-handicapped people, please excuse us as the higher order multiple stall has yet to be built!

Originally published THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2007 BY MIMI RANKIN WEBB

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