Hi everybody! My name is Jenny, and when I was a 12-year-old, I fell into a toilet. That’s right, I FELL into a toilet. How does one do that? Great question. To this day, I still don’t know how that happened, but I guess I can try to explain.

The summer between sixth and seventh grade, my family went to Malaysia to visit my dad’s side. For those of you who don’t know what Malaysia is, it is an islandish country right next to Singapore. It’s humid and hot and jungley and quite honestly another world. The best part? The majority of public toilets are in the ground! Yes, you heard me right! They are literally in the ground and you have to squat to use them.

I guess you can sort of guess which direction the story is heading, but let me go ahead and set the scene for you. My entire family was out at dinner at this restaurant, and when I say my entire family, I mean the restaurant was completely booked out for us. The entire place was filled to the brim with people who were somehow related to me or really close friends of people who were somehow related to me. It was a constant mess of my dad introducing me to people and me pretending that I was going to remember their names.

After mingling for a while, my tiny 12-year-old bladder couldn’t handle it anymore; I had to go the bathroom. When I had finished I went to flush the toilet, and I don’t know who designed these toilets, but I honestly have some very choice (not professional nor nice) words for the designer. The handle to flush the toilet was SO HIGH UP. Who designs a toilet that is in the ground and makes the handle to flush in Timbuktu. No, it wasn’t even in Timbuktu, it was in Tumbuk-three at this point (get it, Timbuk2, Timbuk3).

Look at me now, I stand at a staggering five feet zero inches at the ripe age of 18. Can you imagine how short I was when I was 12 years old? I reached for the handle and flushed it. But as the toilet had just emptied out the contents and started refilling with clean water, I lost my balance and slipped. Guess where I landed? You guessed it, I fell into the toilet. My right foot just in a toilet. Not only did I fall into the toilet but twisted my ankle when I did that.

I stood there for a minute—foot still in the toilet. I hadn’t quite registered what had happened. Suddenly, my mind started racing. I had no idea what to do with myself. What do you do when you fall into a toilet?  

I limped back to dinner, my right pant leg was soaked until a little past my ankle. I approached my dad and mutter underneath my breath, “I just twisted my ankle falling into the toilet”. The following roar that came out of his mouth was deafening. When the people around him asked what was so funny, he couldn’t help but share my latest misfortune. It was beyond mortifying. I wished I had drowned in that toilet.

Looking back at it, this is something that could have only happened to me. But at least during ice breakers, I have a really great embarrassing story to share.