Office Bathrooms: A Horror Story
Ya know what they don’t teach in business school? How to take a deucer in the office when you and your co-worker can identify each fart from its source’s footwear. Where’s that scholarly journal? Droppin’ a few in the office is awkward as — well, shit — but if you’re a decent human being, you’re self-taught at insulating yourself, and your peers, from overlapping bathroom narratives. Here are a few techniques of note, for those less familiar with the etiquette of bombing out the office loo:
Shawshanking: In the movie Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne conceals the loud stone blows of his pipe-bursting prison break under the thunder rolls of a convenient rainstorm. Similarly, in an office bathroom, you hide the initial, fart-filled opening chapters of your shit beneath roaring flushes and powerful hand dryers, leaving your turd soldiers to go quietly into that good night. No one wants to suppress giggles at your machine-gun farts.
Shot-Calling: Most times, a mass exodus is not entirely urgent. In this case, it can pay dividends to wait for that telltale pitter-patter of a crap sesh coming to a close. The ripping of paper and shifting of position is your cue to be patient, and wait until your dump oasis is soon rid of other inhabitants. So, it follows suit that you should only initiate this process if there’s reason to give your neighbor hope. Don’t just rip off TP willy nilly so you have some for later. That is the definition of a false promise, my guy. Don’t Indian-give bathroom solitude.
Traffic Control: The logical next step to shot calling is the well-timed exit. If you sense the other person waiting you out, by all means move on to exit protocol, wherein you fluidly flush, re-pant, and go turbo on the hand washing. Under no circumstances should you hear the person next to you doing this and decide, “Hey, guess I’m done, too!” leaving you to stare each other’s shame directly in the face. I shouldn’t even have to say this one, and yet…
The Perfect Storm
…today I found myself in the least desirable of all shituations.
Cut to me in the bathroom, waiting a guy out so I can drop a real stinker. I was young and naive, for it was not to be that simple. From at least the time I came on the scene, mystery man was totally silent in his crap cubical. He was a lifeless pair of slip-on dress shoes. Following my typical opening strategies, we found ourselves locked in a stalemate, which lasted a frustrating 6 minutes until, finally, my auto flush became sentient and activated for no reason (as auto flush is wont to do). I seized the opportunity to sprint through the initial “power stages” of the dump and, in a flurry of flushes, was safely inside the eye of the storm. I probably could have left then. I should have left then, but I could tell my gut had more creations it wanted to share. So, in no particular hurry, I fired up a quick game of Threes™ to wait this turd burglar out another 5–10. But alas, from the start of the game, up through my crushing defeat, there was nothing. Only silence endured. At that point, I realized it was possible that the guy in the next stall had actually died, and I’d been engaging in a shit-fueled war of attrition with a dead guy for 10+ minutes. So, for fear of becoming a sensational news quote, I squeaked out a couple last efforts and finished up (even significantly shot-calling to stake my claim to the single working sink). Met only with the now-ominous silence, I flushed the toilet and prepared to disembark. But then it happened: To my horror, I IMMEDIATELY HEARD MY NEMESIS DO THE EXACT SAME THING, mimicking my exit procedure. Now I was legitimately horrified. It was like some sort of poop Freddy Kreuger had caught me sleeping at my desk, and used the opportunity to exploit my deepest bathroom fears. NO! Rather than wait for this unpredictable incarnation of poop terrorism to casually walk into my stall, I power washed my hands and walked/jogged from the scene as my would-be killer fumbled with his belt/sharp knives he’d use to stab my butt because he was clearly a fucking sociopath, man.
And that was it. It reads like nothing, but to a conscientious work pooper, it is a living nightmare. I am never going back in that bathroom because, somewhere, he’s waiting…silently.
