In Venice, we wandered into a restaurant that felt less like a business and more like we had accidentally walked into someone’s grandmother’s kitchen.

It was warm, cozy, completely unpretentious, and exactly the kind of place you hope to stumble across while traveling. We settled in, ordered our food, and everything was going beautifully.

Then I had to use the bathroom.

This should have been a simple task.

It was not.

I walked in, closed the door behind me, looked down, and froze.

There was no toilet.

At least not a toilet as I understood the concept.

There was a hole in the floor.

I just stood there staring at it.

Surely I was missing something.

Was there another bathroom?

Was this decorative?

Was this some ancient Venetian plumbing exhibit?

Nope.

That was the toilet.

Now came the bigger question: What exactly was I supposed to do with it?

Squat?

Hover?

Call Sarah for emotional support?

For reasons I still cannot explain, I decided the correct answer was: sit.

Yes.

Sit.

On the floor.

Apparently my brain saw a hole in the ground and thought, You know what would improve this situation? Full commitment.

So I carefully lined the opening with toilet paper like I was preparing some sort of extremely questionable nest and slowly lowered myself down.

And down.

At some point I realized just how far down this journey was taking me, but by then there was no turning back.

Eventually, I got situated and thought, Okay. This is weird, but I’ve got this.

Then the lights went out.

Completely dark.

Pitch black.

There I was, practically sitting on the floor of a Venetian bathroom, pants down, hovering over a hole, unable to see anything.

It was at this point that I discovered the bathroom light was apparently on a motion sensor.

A motion sensor that could not detect me because I was approximately three inches off the ground.

Fantastic.

So now I had to somehow pull myself back up, in complete darkness, while trying not to fall into the toilet I had just voluntarily decided to sit on.

I started waving my arms around like I was trying to land an airplane.

Nothing.

More waving.

Still nothing.

Finally, the light clicked back on.

There I was.

Half crouched.

Pants involved.

Toilet paper everywhere.

Questioning every decision I had made since arriving in Italy.

At that point, I abandoned Plan A.

No more sitting.

I squatted.

Like I should have done from the beginning.

When I finally returned to the table, Sarah looked at me like I had been gone for an unusually long time.

All I could say was:

“Oh my God. You will never believe what just happened to me.”

Naturally, once I explained it, Sarah started laughing.

So I told her, “You have to go look at that bathroom.”

Because if marriage means anything, it means sending your wife into a squat toilet immediately after you have been personally victimized by it.

That Venetian bathroom was my first experience with an unfamiliar toilet while traveling.

It would absolutely not be my last.

I just didn’t know yet that I had officially entered a new phase of international travel:

Bathroom roulette.