Yeah yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, I'm trying to work towards updating this blog more regularly. You've heard it before because I write it at the beginning of almost every entry.
Still, today I was disturbed enough to be moved to blog.
I will preface this whole story by saying this: when using a public restroom, if I have to pop a squat, I am incredibly self-conscious to the point of OCD avoidance. Especially around the office, where our entire floor has a shared public restroom, I have put off trips if there is someone in the restroom who might see me enter a stall instead of approaching a urinal. It's crazy, yes, but that's just how I roll. Everybody poops, but I don't when it's public knowledge that it's me in there. I will wait for people leave before exiting a stall, and if someone is in the stall next to mine, I'll crowd away from the divider so my shoe isn't there to tip anyone off. I have issues, but it's okay. My issues are part of what keep this blog going, infrequently as it may be.
So, back to the case at hand. I'm in the restroom at work, which as I said is shared with the entire floor of our office complex and any guests that these businesses might have. I'm quietly sitting in a stall, making myself invisibile and inaudible if at all possible. Someone comes in and sits down in the other stall. This is fine. This happens every day. Again, everybody poops. It's life. I am sitting there, doing everything in my power not to shift or make other noises. Then all of a sudden I hear it. Something nobody should ever have to hear.
The poop moan.
You all know what I'm talking about. That slightly relaxing exhalation of satisfaction when "legislation has been pushed through" if you catch my drift. Mortified, I sit there in mild shock, bug-eyed at the fact that some random dude would just let that out in a public restroom, especially knowing that there'someone sitting there a few scant feet from him with nothing but three quarters of an inch of particle board keeping us apart. As I'm sitting there staring straight ahead, trying to plot my move, it happens again, but worse. So I immediately finish up and get the hell out of there with the maximum possible speed.
But this experience got me thinking - is it me? Do normal people just make themselves at home when they're on the throne, no matter where the throne may be? Am I over-reacting? I know this whole entry is a wee bit of an overshare, and what happens in the bathroom should stay in the bathroom, but the fact that now, hours later I am still kind of shivering about the whole situation, I had to get it out there. I think the other guy in there, knowing that there was someone in the stall next door, was way out of line. You don't just go into a public space and start making rampant noises of personal satisfaction with your bowel movements. At least you shouldn't, because that shit's nasty. Literally and figuratively.
4 comments:
i'll admit i am the same way. the only way i will ever mount the throne away from home is if its an emergency.
I wonder who it was in the building....no, on second thought, I don't want to know who it was in the building.
The trick is to bring in some sound isolating headphones so you can zone out and focus on the task at hand.
At least that's the only way I could put up with my awkward bowel schedule during my tenure in SF ;)
@ Dallas - When you work the standard 8/9 hour workday, oftentimes hopping on the throne just becomes a fact of life.
@ Jen - I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty that it isn't anyone from the office, but still, just terrible.
@ Cole - then you're that creepy guy who brings his headphones to the john. That's almost as weird as wearing a bike helment into the bathroom.
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