It was going to be the perfect night. Charlie and I were eating out first dinner together at an up-scale Chinese restaurant after a stroll in the park more romantic than a scene from any chick flick. The street lamps flickered in a quaint Parisian way as doves cooed from towering maples. I felt wonderful, I smelled wonderful.

It was essential that I looked wonderful.

After Charlie and I were seated, I excused myself and headed to the bathroom. I prayed that no one else was in there because I needed the mirror all to myself. My hand landed on the door in a light, lady-like knock. (I was afraid of chipping my newly manicured nails), but no one answered. I knocked again, this time more firmly in case the person inside hadn’t heard me the first time. Again, no answer. Excellent.

I stepped into the bathroom, disappointed but not surprised by the poor lighting and the filthy floor. No matter how low-class or fancy a Chinese restaurant is, all the bathrooms are the same: scratched-up mirrors, scarce toilet tissue, and cockroach-infested walls. But I wouldn’t let the dirt and grime deter me. I had my make-up purse in one hand and the power to perform cosmetic wonders in the other.

Thankfully the bathroom had a single toilet, so no one could interrupt me during the primping process. I examined myself straight-on in the mirror: my hair exhibited one too many fly-aways and my lip gloss was fading, but everything else was as gorgeous as it was going to be without a chainsaw’s worth of plastic surgery. I opened my purse slowly so I could admire all of its contents: one glittery tube of lip gloss (for that “movie star shine,” the department store saleswoman had breathed as she swept a stripe of sparkle to her upper lip. “I swear Kirsten Dunst wears the same brand.”); one bottle of French perfume (I still couldn’t pronounce its name, even though the saleswoman coached me for fifteen minutes. So when people asked what fragrance I was wearing, I would flash a coy smile and respond, “Well, it’s French, you know.” The person would then nod knowingly.); one pure black mascara (“I swear Cleopatra used the same brand!” the saleswoman had giggled, but I didn’t get the joke); one palette of neutral eye shadow (“Brandishing the natural look doesn’t mean going naked,” the saleswoman winked. “It means going nude.” And she pointed at a beige shadow with “just a hint of pearl dust from genuine Japanese oysters”.); and a bottle of hair spray (“Sometimes I wonder how Rapunzel ever dealt with the humidity---and then I realize that she must have used Tropical Tresses®!”). I only packed the essentials for night out like this. After all, I didn’t have all evening to airbrush my flaws. I had just spent all morning and afternoon doing that!

I re-applied my lip gloss even though I knew that meant I’d have to sip my water through my teeth, and sprayed some hair spray onto my bangs. Ravishing, But now I had to, ahem, go. 

I grabbed the last two sheets of toilet paper (why were there never more than three sheets in these Hunan places?) and diligently covered as much of the seat as possible given my limited resources. Then, as always, I squatted and did what I had to do, trying not to imagine all the bacteria dancing just centimeters beneath my skin. As soon as I was finished, I jumped off the toilet and adjusted my skirt. I turned around to remove the paper towel from the seat when I saw a flash of green. 

“That’s odd,” I thought, “I only peed and I didn’t even eat spinach today.” I shrugged my shoulders and threw the paper towel away, but when I turned around to flush, I saw it again...but this time in plain view: the Chinese dragon.

“Oh, my God!” I screamed and I was sure that the entire restaurant heard me, even above the slurping of their Udon noodles.

The green creature popped its head out of the bowl and eyed my glowing red curls and purple dress (the velvet one with the silver buttons), as if gleaning fashion tips in a single glance. It flickered its orange tongue to smell my French perfume. 

“Jesus!” I seized the toilet plunger propped up against the wall and swung it around like a sword. 

“Stay away from me!” But the dragon was not one to follow orders. It slowly slithered out of the toilet, slinking closer and closer to my corner of the room, as its pupils gradually turned into tinier and tinier slits. 

“I’ve got a toilet plunger!”

Closer and closer...once the dragon had fully emerged from the toilet, I realized that it wasn’t a dragon at all, but a snake. A giant snake, a python of five or six feet in length. Once the snake was a mere two feet away from my Argentinean-leather stilettos ($300 on sale), it decided to stop and just study me, but I wasn’t going to take my time studying it! I charged at the serpent and it started retracting backwards into the toilet, but I wouldn’t let it escape. 

“You’re not getting away from me!” I struck the snake with the toilet plunger over and over again until it snapped in half. It had happened so quickly that I almost didn’t believe that it had happened at all. I kicked it, but it remained motionless. 

I had defeated the Chinese dragon.

I collapsed into a ball against the tagged up wall and started crying silently when I heard a knock on the door.

“Samantha?” I t was Charlie. “Are you almost done, sweetheart?”

He jiggled the handle.

“Come in,” I whimpered.

He busted the door open. “Christ, are you alright?” Charlie ran to me and crouched down to stroke my hair. “What’s the matter?” Then a beat later, before I could even answer his question, he asked, “What are your pantyhose doing in the toilet?”

I looked up and saw my jungle green tights hanging over the edge of the toilet seat, the ones the department store saleswoman said reminded her of a retired millionaire’s to an Amazonian paradise.

“Well,” I said, standing up to fish the tights out of the toilet, “They’re expensive, you know.”