What the hell was I supposed to do? Dip my hands into that filthy toilet bowl?

I had just changed trains, grabbed a dozen handles and railings, pressed buttons, and probably touched a fair number of surfaces of questionable cleanliness. So the very first thing I wanted to do – needed to do – once I got on board for my final train ride for the day was give my hands a proper, thorough scrub. Being the optimist I am, I simply assumed there would be warm water left in the tap in the restroom of car 5 on SJ’s high-speed train to Malmö.

For once, the restroom was unoccupied, though not exactly spotless… Foolishly, I didn’t begin by checking whether there was any water in the tap at all. Instead, I pressed the soap dispenser five or six times, filling my hands with rich, foaming lather. I started washing – rubbing and working the soap into my palms, between my fingers, and every crevice and crevasse I could locate. When I felt the soap had reached every tiny crease and corner, I pressed the red button next to the faucet symbol.

Dead stop. Not a single drip or drop.

So there I stood, somewhere between Alvesta and Älmhult, with foaming hands as white as the Småland wintry forest the train was racing through. Since my hands would almost certainly become even dirtier if I dipped them into the bowl, which had probably been clogged ever since the train left Stockholm, I shook off most of the foam, grabbed a few paper towels, and wiped away much of the lather. Then I walked to carriage 6 and queued up as third in line for that restroom instead. After a while, I was finally able to wash off the remaining soap, which by then had nearly dried.

The moral of the story, naturally, is always to check the water before things get too foamy.