Stalled

Whenever I poop I prefer to be at home. It's not a phobia of public bathroom thing but more of a social awkwardness thing. The act of taking a shit next to a person in a multiple stall toilet next to someone who is doing the same thing is weird. You don't know how things are working in their GI tract, but you get an indication from the sounds coming from the stall next to you. Human bodies make embarrassing sounds...

Yes, I know. There's books like, Everyone Poops. Which is meant for children to get used to the idea that they are going to be doing it daily until death. Not reading, pooping. Though reading and pooping are a thing. I'm not the type which reads War and Peace while on the toilet. I'm generally business-like. I do my business and get on with my day. It's quick. I don't have to spend too much time.

That's not the way it is for everyone. I have been in a stall next to someone who sounded like he was forcing a grizzly bear out of his ass. I almost asked if he was okay. But then that starts any number of awkward conversations. How big is the bear? Is it a cub or a fully grown angry 15 foot tall kodiak bear?

I don't know how women's rooms are, since women go to the toilet in pairs. Is that just to get away from silly men and talk? Do they talk in the stalls? I've seen it in movies, but I don't know if it happens like that in real life. So many questions. And I don't really pine for an answer.

Men's rooms are generally quiet. Like a tomb quiet. You don't generally acknowledge another person is there. It's not the place for conversation. That can take place outside. Inside there's work to be done. And then you get out. What women don't know is that at a line of urinals, two men won't stand next to each other if they can help it. We always have an empty urinal between us. If at all possible. But that would be another blog. Or a Funny or Die video.

Once I was working a corporate thing. I was sitting in a stall doing my business when a guy entered the bathroom. I knew he was there because he was talking on his cell phone. In speaker mode. He entered the stall next to mine and continued to talk. Are you shitting me? He didn't tell the person he was in the restroom and I guess his call was soooo important he couldn't hang up. It would be easy. Say, "Can I call you back in 5 minutes?" Most people would respond affirmatively.

So I sat there being especially quiet. Uncomfortably listening to both sides of this business call. At some point I was fed up and decided to fuck with him. His call was invading the serenity of my pooping, so why not? I knocked on the wall of the stall to the guy on the phone next to me. "Excuse me." I said loudly. Loud enough for the other person on the call to hear. "Do you have any toilet paper in your stall? This one is about out. Can you please pass me about 3 feet under the wall?"

The phone call stopped. There was a long silence. The person on the other end of the call said rather icily, "I'll call you back. When you aren't busy."

I embarrassed the shit out of the guy, but it was all innocent enough, and his own fault for impolitely carrying on a conversation while pooping.

He rolled out 3 feet of TP and passed it under the wall. I said, "Thank you very much."

I quickly got out of the bathroom and never saw who it was.