As told by Gazz in the U.K....
A young lady has a new, well-to-do boyfriend. He suggests that she come and meet his parents by having dinner at their place. After a pleasant drive into the country he pulls into a long, impressive drive and she is shocked to find that "their place" is a huge country estate. The door is opened by a butler, who shows the couple in. It's a very impressive, stately home with history, etc.
Everything goes well as they are given drinks and introduced. Being a normal, working class girl, she is a bit awestruck and worried about making a faux pas or breaking some rule of etiquette she is unaware of.
After several drinks she relaxes and they are shown into the dining room for a large feast. Halfway through dinner, the girl, having drunk a fair bit, needs the loo. In her best, polite manner she asks for "the bathroom?" and is shown out of the room by a servant and pointed upstairs to a room.
It's a huge house with many rooms and she finds what she thinks is the right door, only to find a "bathroom" — i.e., no toilet, just a sink and bath. As she only needs a quick wee, she locks the door, hitches up her skirt and, balancing one leg on the bath, sits on the pedestal sink. Unfortunately, it starts to tip over and she hits her head on the bath and knocked unconscious.
She is awakened by a commotion as the door is pushed in and her new boyfriend and family burst in to see her, knickers down, skirt raised and soaking wet, with the broken sink on the floor and water pouring everywhere!!!
As told by Sandi Ritchie in Australia...
I have heard this a few times. Each time, it has supposedly happened to the storyteller's friend or friend's girlfriend or cousin or whatever...
A man is going out with a woman and he decides to take her home to meet his parents. They arrive at his parents' house and it is a mansion. She is somewhat overawed.
They go in and meet the parents. She is really nervous and desperately needs to urinate, so she says to the mother, "Could you please tell me where the bathroom is?"
The mother takes her literally and shows her to a bathroom — no toilet. The woman panics a bit, but decides she can't go and tell the mother that she actually wanted a toilet, so she gets up onto the sink and starts urinating. Her weight rips the sink from the wall and the whole thing plummets to the ground.
Feeling somewhat embarrassed, she goes back to the lounge room to rejoin the others. Once in the lounge room, she sits down on the couch and squashes a Pekingese dog to death.
Comments: It is frequently the case that the harder we try to avoid embarrassment, the more embarrassment we bring upon ourselves. Most people, even those who have never faced the conundrum of a split bathroom, can relate to this story. There are times — and meeting the parent's of one's paramour is one of those — when nothing seems more important than making a good impression. And we have all lost face while trying to save it.
"Typically in such stories there is a series of mishaps, each worse than the last, all leading up to some kind of exposure of the victim before others' eyes," writes Jan Harold Brunvand. "The comedy in these legends is simple, visual, physical, and farcical, yet it's just believable enough to seem convincing when told by a believer to whose friend's friend the incident happened."
