I need to share this e-mail from my mother. It's too much fun not to share!
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This evening we went back to the marketplace at Gammeltorv for our evening meal. We were sitting comfortably, enjoying our entrecote steaks, when Dad decided he should find a toilet. He headed down Strøget toward the big public toilets there. Well, time passed...and time passed...and time passed. I began to wonder if he had become ill or something, but he suddenly showed up, bursting with something to tell me. It turned out to be something that could only happen to John Venning. This is his story:
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He went down the steps to the men's toilet, only to find two young women there, one of them naked except for bikini panties. She was being painted by the other one.
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"Excuse me, but this is the men's toilet."
"Yes, that's all right."
"But someone could call the police about you."
"The police already know."
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So of course Dad got into conversation with them, while the body-painting continued, and discovered that this was part of a big campaign. You see, the almost-naked girl was standing with her back to the wall. One side of her body was being painted to match the cement blocks of the wall there, while the other side was being painted sort of off-white with narrow maroon stripes to match the wall there. The idea was to make her almost invisible, just a part of the wall. The campaign? To make people aware of the need to wash their hands after going to the toilet, as part of the campaign warning people about H1N1 (swine flu). If someone started to leave without washing his hands, part of the wall would leap at him, yelling at him to wash his hands. Is that a novel idea, or what?
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After we finished our steaks, we went back there, and Dad led me down the steps to the men's toilet. By that time a young man was sitting at the entrance where clients are to drop their 2 kroner, and Dad told him, "My wife has to see this." He grinned understandingly. I was startled to see how well the young woman did blend into the wall, even though I knew she would be there. Dad, the young man, and I fell into a brief, amusing conversation. The girl held her pose and her silence. Of course Dad stepped toward her and offered to touch up a couple of places where he said the paint brush had missed. Playing along, I grabbed his arm and exclaimed, "You just stay away from her!" The young man was laughing, but he also told us in a low voice that there's a camera taking everything that happens during this campaign. So when someone goes over that footage, Dad and I will be stars.
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Actually, I can imagine how it might go. As one enters the main room, the girl is on the left, hardly noticeable. One could easily head quickly for the toilets straight ahead and not look to the left at all. Then, coming out of the toilet, he might be zipping up his pants, not looking one way or the other. If he walked right past the sinks without using them, that's when the wall would leap at him. I just hope there aren't any deaths from heart attacks. As Penny would say about Dad's propensity for odd experiences, "Why does life keep happening to him?!"
