You should have peed in the sink.
This happened to me just the other week – at my office, no less. It’s amazing what creatures of habit we are. Our bathrooms are in the elevator foyer, and there’s a door at either end. 99% of the time, I’m entering the foyer from the west end, I pass the women’s bathroom on my right, and go through the door facing me. Well, the other week, I was actually proceeding to the bathroom through the door at the east end of the foyer, and so passed one bathroom, and entered the one facing me – which, it goes without saying, was the women’s room.
It’s like passing into another dimension – you’re in what you think is a familiar location, and yet everything looks different. Fortunately, I recovered my wits and scampered out before anybody saw me. At least I hope so.
I had a similar situation. Company I used to work for had offices on two floors with the bathrooms on either side of the elevator. One time the building was doing maintenance on both bathrooms on our floor so I took the elevator up to the next floor, went to the right and walked into the bathroom. That’s when I realized that the jokers who designed our building had reversed the bathroom layouts. On my floor, the men’s room was on the right off the elevator and the ladies room was on the left. The next floor up it was opposite. At least I caught myself before I stepped in too far.
Who wants to know? shifty eyes Just kidding. Yep, I go to good ole SJU.
I changed Kid#2’s diaper in the men’s room at the zoo last year. Neither Kid#2 or I are men. I didn’t mean to.
For some reason the thought process was:
Need to change kid, stat!
Here is a restroom.
This one has a line, this other one does not.
Enter lineless restroom, use changing table, change kid, wash hands.
The room was empty when we went in, but the guy coming in as we exited was rather shocked looking and double checked the sign to make sure *he * wasn’t the one in error.
Wow! you just reminded me of a reoccurring theme in my dreams. I’m at somebody’s house, public place, school, etc and I waltz up to the small trash can and start to whiz in it. Just as I’m halfway through it occurs to me that its not a proper thing to do and that other people might actually be angered or horrified that I’m doing that. The shock usually wakes me up. At that point I’m thankful that I didn’t wet the bed in the process and get up and head for the can.
As for the Op: Dude! Think on your feet! You should have just said to the lady at the sink “What are you doing in the men’s room?”
When I volunteered with the local renfaire, I used the men’s bathrooms to avoid the crowd. Most of the time, the only guys in there were fellow rennies who were not shocked or amazed, and nobody cared.
I haven’t bothered since, but that’s mostly because I rarely have to use the restroom when there’s a huge line.
This reminds me of a funny story. I was at a concert for Jimmy Buffet one time at one of those locations that was part grassy field, part seats? Well anyway went up to use the rest room and of course the men’s room has the trough. So there’s this line of like 15 or 20 guys all lined up at the trough doing our thing, and in walks this girl. I guess she saw that there wasn’t a line and figured she’d just use the men’s room instead (which I actually don’t have a problem with. I’ve done the opposite myself before) but I guess she had no idea that such a thing as the trough even existed. The look of surprised horror on her face as she realized that guys just sort of lined up and all peed together into a metal pan was just alien to her. Funniest expresion I’ve ever seen.
The girl at the sink was cute. I wouldn’t say a thing like that to scare her off. 
When I was in college I walked into the restroom to see a man standing at the sink washing his hands. He looked at me and then around the restroom and said, “Isn’t this the men’s room?” I looked around for a minute and said, “I don’t see any urinals so my guess is no, this is the ladies room.” He laughed and apologized for being in the women’s restroom and strolled out like he had tickled himself pink by accidentally using the wrong bathroom.
My son (14, so he’s been going to the men’s room alone for years and years) just mentioned the trough* to me the other day. I was flummergasted, and I’m 32 (and, as previously mentioned, have been in my share of men’s rooms. I just don’t go sightseeing in them). Really? A trough? Ew.
*I was asking him if men’s urinals flush, and if so, do men actually flush them after each use, or do they enjoy the stench of stale urine. He pointed out that not all washrooms had urinals at all, some of them have troughs instead.
The trough is actually a better idea than it sounds. It’s big and an easy target to hit. Usually, in crowded venues, they leave a trickle of water running continuously. It’s often cleaner than individual urinals which can be flushed optionally.
Now, here at work, we have the automatic flushers. There’s a little lens just above waist high with a laser sensor. I’ve made the joke that the Powers-That- Be are really using it to take measurements and that next year, our performance appraisals will be based on penis size.
It would be more equitable than anything else they’ve tried. Our raises would be based on has the biggest prick, not on who is the biggest prick.
Is there some cultural reference I’m not getting?
Do you usually sit down to pee?
I go to St. John’s University. It is a men’s college. The students are referred to as Johnnies. The College of S. Benedict is a women’s college a few miles down the highway. The students there are called Bennies. At some point in the history of the two colleges, they decided to join up, so except for some of the administration crap, it’s essentially one college split in two. Sorry about the confusion.
I didn’t really know if I had to do a #1 or a #2 so I just sat down.
Here’s mine I have previously posted before:
So I’m at the IKEA in the Chicago area. It’s a circular multi-level design and I’ve been there on several ocassions. I’ve got to use the restroom urgently. I excuse myself from my wife. So I zip over to the restrooms and having visted them on previous ocassions I know blindly where they are and dart right on in.
I go in and no ones present but all the stall doors are closed except for the one on the far end so I make a bee line for it. I made it!
Then while I’m sitting there I notice the guy in the stall next to me is wearing some pretty effeminate looking shoes. I shake my head thinking “dang, someone should really tell that guy he’s wearing ladies shoes.” Then I hear a couple people entering the bathroom. That’s strange? Why does it sound like ladies voic…
(i’m in the ladies restroom)(you know I do remember thinking there sure were a lot of stalls in here for a men’s room)
Everytime I’ve visited the restroom at this IKEA the men’s room is on the right, ladies on the left. HOWEVER… on the next floor down for whatever reason they are reversed with the mens on the left, ladies on the right. I zipped in without even looking at the signage.
Then I had to make my escape. I counted 1…2…3… flung the stall door open, kept my head and eyes down, walked as fast as I could out the door and just kept on speed walking across the store and found my wife.
She looked at me and asked “Why are you sweating and breathing so hard?”
That was also the first thought that came to my mind while in a restroom entrance at a Pennsylvania Turnpike service plaza a few days before Christmas about 8 years ago. I stood there for a little bit while my brain worked out the situation, then realized the mens room entrance must be the other way.
Not exactly a bathroom story, but there was some construction at my gym a year or two ago that caused the men’s locker room to close. Our temporary locker room was right next to the ladies’ locker room.
I got done with my lifting and, as usual, was pretty out of it due to extreme exhaustion. Each locker room’s entrance is accessed by a different stairwell, both next to each other. The ladies’ locker room sign says “Women Only”. I can’t recall the exact wording of the temporary men’s locker room, but it was set up in a room that’s usually used for parents and their children for part of the day and ladies for the rest. The sign was fairly ambiguous even fully alert, though.
I charge up the wrong staircase, throw open the door and nearly walk in. Something off about the scene wakes me up and makes me do a double-take. “Hey, since when did they paint the temorary locker room…orange…and why are all these guys…so pretty…and wearing…BRAS?!”
I actually yelled “CRAP” and backed out. I thought I’d gotten away clean, but as I walked out, I noticed the pretty receptionist giving me an enormous shit-eating grin. D’oh!
Next day I came in, there was an ENORMOUS hand printed sign over the temporary locker room indicating that this is where guys go. 
Coming back from a trip to a cottage we rented in Quebec, with my sister, her girlfriend, and my girlfriend, we stopped at a major rest stop (the kind that has McDonald’s and Tim Hortons).
My sister is 5’8" and a bit, has a fauxhawk, wears no make-up, and she’s very athletic, so kind of buff. So she gets “guyed” a lot, but usually only in dark bars.
In the rest stop restroom, a woman was waiting for her friend. When my sister came out of a stall the woman gave her the Angry Glare of Death and called to her friend “I hope your door has a lock on it.”
Now, the interesting thing is that, the Angry Glare of Death lady was clearly a visitor from the southern U.S., so her heavy southern accent conspired to create a really unfortunate stereotype of Bible-belt intolerance. Was her comment directed at a “young male pervert” or the “obvious lesbian”?
Anyway, in the busy facility, another (Canadian) woman piped up with: “She is allowed to use the bathroom, bigot.”
My sister said it was surreal.
“What? Even if I was a guy, what the hell did she think I was going to do?”