The Vatican bathrooms
My biggest thing is privacy. When you're sitting there and someone is, say, in the stall next to you, and it's dead quiet, what on earth are you supposed to do???? Unless I'm amongst friends and we're behaving like 13 year olds, I don't want anyone to get an intimate understanding of the noises my bathroom areas make. It's rude and embarrassing. I don't know what happened to me. My thoughts turn to when I was younger and I had no qualms whatsoever with grunting and groaning very loudly, making an obscene spectacle of myself for the simple reason that I thought it was funny. It was even better when I'd leave the bathroom and my friends would report to me that they could hear me all the way to the lingerie section. There was no better pride. It can't be an age thing, because I still find that pretty hilarious. Just so long as the noises aren't emanating from my stall.
There's also the weird things other people do in the bathroom. For example, talking on the cell phone while dropping a deuce. I have never understood that. What would the other person think if they knew that while telling of the wonderful things that happened to them during their day, the recipient of their story was in the middle of evacuating their bowels? Isn't there some form of grunting or straining involved? David Sedaris wrote of a similar story, wherein he discovered his own sister had done the same to him. Her excuses for the grunting? Trying to open jars of mayonnaise. That story has me so paranoid now, that someone could be so much as exasperated from sweeping the floor and I'll state they're disgusting and request they call me back when they're done pooping. There was another moment when the person in the stall next to me used an endless amount of toilet paper. I don't know what their deal was, but I was patiently sitting there, waiting for them to leave so as to not have them hear my business (God, I sound like an old woman), and they just kept using more and more paper. It was crazy. I must have been sitting there for a good 10 minutes waiting for them to finish writing their TP novel. I finally said "Fuck it" and let it rip. It was their just desserts for taking so damned long.
Then there's the handicap stall. I'm sorry, but if you use the handicap stall when there are other regular stalls available, you're a fucking creep and you should burn in hell. To me, that's the equivalent of parking in a handicap spot, but instead of your car, your parking your ass. Not cool, especially when you work in a place that employs a lot of people in chairs. Just the other day I had to go in the worst way only to find that our 2 normal people stalls were occupado. I had no choice but to use the crip stall. At first it was cool, because I figured if someone handicapable were to wheel their way in, they'd see that all of the stalls were taken and assume I had no other option. Yeah, that was great until the other 2 people finished their bidness and left. At that point, it was me trying to take care of my own as quickly as I could. I was at the pool, but the kids, for some reason or another, were taking their sweet time getting out of the car. You know how kids can be. Every time that bathroom door opened, I prayed I would hear the soft pitter-patter of dress shoes as opposed to the squeak of tire wheel against tile. Needless to say, I made it out intact without incurring the wrath of one less fortunate. Is there even a clinical name for that kind of phobia?
(For some further hilarity involving misuse of the handicap stall, please see the 1st episode of the 2nd season of The IT Crowd!!!)
This is getting lengthy as far as restroom shenanigans go, but there is one more creepo bathroom story I need to tell. A few weeks ago, I'm in the stall "gettin'r done," as a certain, unfunny, faux redneck "comic" would say, when someone walked up to the urinal next door. I'm sitting there minding my own, when the gentleman says, "I could reach under there and take your keys!" You see, like most cool people, I wear my keys on a biner/beaner/whatever from my right back belt loop. So, of course, with my pants around my ankles, vulnerably, I might add, my keys are just laying there and ripe for the picking, according to the guy who should have been minding his own pissness.
"What?" I respond, not fully knowing what the fuck is going on. I mean, I just wanted to poop in private!
"I could just grab your keys and run off! You couldn't do anything about it!"
"Um...uh....heh heh......yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right." I don't know if the Keymaster noticed or not, but my feet slightly scrinched away from the opening of the stall. I put a little hustle in my bustle and got out of the stall. The guy was just finishing himself up when I made it to the sink. He was an older man of black skin descent and looked totally unassuming. I knew better.
"I could have just reached right down and snatched your keys!" He repeated as he walked up to the sink (not next to mine, thank Jesus) to wash up. I felt obligated to answer, now that the Keymaster had a face and I knew he was just being a Chatty Kathy.
"Yeah, I don't know what I would have done. I guess I would have had a mess on my hands." Whether he thought I was being literal or figurative, I couldn't tell. He then proceeded to say something I just could not understand. This was in part due to 2 faucets running. Also what he said next was so far from the topic of running off with the keys of a shitting victim, my brain just couldn't register the words coming out of his mouth. I think he was relating the topic at hand to a Bible story. A Bible story. In the bathroom. I shit you not. (Hardee har har)
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked. All I could do was smile awkwardly at him and nod a yes with a small moan of "comprehension." I then got out of the bathroom as quickly as I could with a firm grip on my keys. I wish the same could be said of my sanity. I've made it a habit of using the middle stall from now on.
Don't even get me started on the people who leave the sink on and walk out of the bathroom or even worse, the ones who don't wash their hands at all. And these are the class act people I work with.
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