Take Me To Your Toilet
(An airport concourse. A FOREIGNER of indeterminate ethnicity, in some lavatorial distress, accosts a MAN as he passes)
FOREIGNER: Excuse please?
MAN: Mmm?
FOREIGNER: Where telephone?
MAN: Do what, mate?
FOREIGNER: Where telephone?
MAN: Ah, foreigner are you?
FOREIGNER: Please?
MAN: You. Immigrant. From abroad?
FOREIGNER: Yes. Immigrant. Telephone please?
MAN: Thought I could tell the brogue. I’ve been to Fuerteventura. Right, well first we’ve got to get you using those personal pronouns haven’t we? Now, think back. What was it you said wrong?
FOREIGNER: Telephone?
MAN: No, you said excuse please. Now there’s something missing isn’t there?
FOREIGNER: Excuse?
MAN: No, excuse me.
FOREIGNER: Excuse you?
MAN: No no, excuse me.
FOREIGNER: Is OK. I want telephone.
MAN: No, you say it. Excuse me please—
FOREIGNER: Excuse me please—
MAN: Where is – definite article?
FOREIGNER: But I no want definite article, I want telephone.
MAN: No, definite article the, where is the—
FOREIGNER: Where is the—
MAN: Te-le-phone.
FOREIGNER: Where is the te-le-phone.
MAN: You got it! Right, from the top.
FOREIGNER: (in agony) Where telephone?!?
MAN: No no, excuse me please—
FOREIGNER: Is OK! Where telephone?
MAN: Look, concentrate. Excuse me please, where is the telephone.
FOREIGNER: Excuse me please, where is the telephone?
MAN: See? Not too difficult was it? Just got to concentrate. Telephone’s over there. (points to phone booth straight out front, makes to leave)
FOREIGNER: (dismayed) Where chain?
MAN: What?
FOREIGNER: Where chain? (mimes flushing a cistern) I want chain.
MAN: What chain? It’s a telephone, you berk. Got wires…
FOREIGNER: I want telephone with chain!
(MAN2 passes with WOMAN)
MAN2: Having trouble?
MAN: This bloke. Wants a telephone with a chain. Must be some kind of fetishist.
FOREIGNER: Telephone! Telephone!
WOMAN: Ah, he probably means the lavatory.
FOREIGNER: Lavatory?
MAN2: Toilet. (to FOREIGNER) You want toilet? Whoosh? (he mimes flushing)
FOREIGNER: (relief) Yes. Toilet! Toilet!
WOMAN: Lavatory, darling.
FOREIGNER: No no! Toilet! Where toilet?
MAN: Gents.
MAN2: What?
MAN: (to FOREIGNER) We say Gents over here, squire.
FOREIGNER: Gents?
WOMAN: Gents? Oh surely not.
MAN2: Nothing wrong with toilet.
WOMAN: Lavatory.
MAN2: Lavatory’s so precious, darling.
WOMAN: But no one goes to the toilet any more.
FOREIGNER: I do! Toilet! Whoosh!
MAN2: See? Toilet, perfectly acceptable word, even Johnny Bongo here uses it.
WOMAN: Well, if you’re going to say toilet you might as well go the whole hog and say loo.
MAN: Loo? Boghole’s better than that ridiculous euphemism…
MAN2: No, boghole, steady on, bit First World War trenches, that.
FOREIGNER: (forlornly) I go boghole…
WOMAN: No, I know. (to FOREIGNER) Do you want to wash your hands?
(FOREIGNER just gapes at her)
MAN: You’re confusing him.
WOMAN: It’s you that’s confusing him with all this inverted snobbery about Gents.
MAN: But come on, ‘wash his hands’? Might as well ask if he wants to put another blanket on the horse.
WOMAN: I beg your pardon?
MAN: Lavatory, loo, just middle-class affectation.
WOMAN: Are you being offensive?
MAN2: Yes, all right, let’s just get this poor sod sorted out first shall we? Look, old man, this whatever it is you’re looking for—
FOREIGNER: (plaintively) Toilet, whoosh…
MAN2: Toilet, lavatory, Gents, well it’s that way. (points)
MAN: No it’s this way. (points elsewhere)
WOMAN: It’s over here. (points somewhere else)
(They proceed to argue amongst themselves while the FOREIGNER plunges desperately into his pocket for a phrase book)
FOREIGNER: Please, please. (he finds a page and reads with careful enunciation) I want – to make – a call.
MAN: What?
FOREIGNER: I want – to make – a call. (triumphantly shows him the page)
MAN: We’re back where we started.
WOMAN: So you do want to use the telephone?
FOREIGNER: Please?
WOMAN: You don’t – want to be – excused?
FOREIGNER: Excused? (a penny drops) Yes! Yes! Excuse me please, where is the telephone?
MAN2: Ah well, that’s easy, mate.
OMNES: It’s over there.
(They all point towards the telephone straight out front and smartly depart, congratulating themselves on a job well done, leaving the FOREIGNER standing there, the book dangling in his hands. He weeps. He sobs. He probably wets himself.)