This being my last day at this test scoring job I have to reflect on one of the annoying things about work: Taking a shit in peace. It certainly isn't the reason I'm leaving, but the daily battle and anxiety over voiding your bowels is something I don't think I'll miss too badly.
There are four bathrooms in this building and, I think, seven stalls for those gentlemen who have to go #2. I am one of those people who would prefer not to sit my ass in a public bathroom where other strangers' asses have gone, but I'm not so militant now where I would vow to hold it until I got home. Can't do that anymore, especially when you gotta go. Also, I have noticed that in the mornings I'm pretty gassy, hate to say it. While I have to suppress my farts pretty much the whole day, I believe that my body processes, which slow while I'm sleeping, generates these pockets of gasses that need to be expelled as soon as I move up and around. So especially in the morning hours, I feel the need to go to the bathroom just to fart, not necessarily to evacuate my feces. Maybe something can be done about that.
Anyway, this means that daily until lunchtime I have subjected myself to this ritual of going to three of the four bathrooms (I don't know why I avoided the fourth, to be honest) so I can drop my pants and see what comes out of my rectum. But I would rather be doing all of that alone. That creates a bunch of problems that always seem to occur when you're working in a building with a lot of people but not a whole lot of bathrooms.
For example, two of the bathrooms have only one stall. Those are the ones I go to first, because the third one have two side-to-side. It's great that you have the stall all to yourself and you're not bothered by anyone who walks into the stall next to you (which I still think is an invasion of my privacy -- too close!) and then starts to emit sounds that you don't to hear. Worse yet is knowing the identity of that person. I live in mortal fear that someone I hear farting and crapping violently comes out of the bathroom stall before I'm done ... and that that someone is someone who works for me, or someone I know. I have problems with very few people in that building, but dude, that's scatological knowledge I don't want to know about that guy, or anyone. (This brings up another thought: I actually only go to two bathrooms. One of the rooms has only one stall, but it's the one closest to the room I work in, so I avoid that because I assume everyone in that room uses that men's room. Actually when I feel like I need to take a dump I go to the men's room furthest from my room.)
The problem is, as you might have guessed, that everybody else prefers a bathroom with only one stall because they don't want to hear any shitting noises by anyone next to them. So, most mornings I make sure to crouch down to see underneath the stall door. If I see feet, it's occupied and I have to move on to another one. And I usually do see feet, thus prompting a shake of a fist from me as I walk out.
That prompts me to go to my Plan B, the one with two bathroom stalls. If one of the two is being used right now, I just hold it. Sorry, I don't care if they hear me fart in the room, I just won't use that open stall. Too invasive. But if they're both open I say a little prayer and use it. More than half the time, unfortunately, I hear footsteps and the closing of the stall door next to me. And I have to rush to either get my bowels out of me or to fart all the gasses out of me so I can get up and wash my hands and leave the bathroom before I discover the identity of the monster making those awful shitting noises next to me. That's such a George Costanza thing to do, I know.
I won't miss any of that. But I'm sure I'll run into that situation in my next position.
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When you have a bunch of strangers (most of them weird), you start to meditate on the manners of finding out how a stall is occupied. I'm astonished that more people don't use less invasive ways to see if a toilet is being used or not. Because there were still some people who, instead of using their knees and bending down from a distance to see if they could see feet in front of a toilet, would use more, uh, direct means to finding out whether or not it's open. And I have a mortal social dread over something like that, even though it hasn't happened yet this season.
I'm talking about the reliable "just go up to the door and jiggle the handle" method, and that terrifies me because those doors aren't the most secure, and they could easily unlock. God, that makes me shudder. I think some people have surreptitiously looked through the slot of the door to see if someone's in there, although I haven't caught anyone doing that, thank goodness. But I was in the bathroom one day and I actually heard someone knock on a door. That's right -- knock. How in the hell is the guy in the bathroom supposed to respond in a way that won't be awkward for anyone involved? Because saying "It's occupied!" doesn't make that situation the greatest one to get out of, if you know what I mean? Privacy was breached as soon as that stupid m-fer knocked.
Honestly, if someone said that to me while I was in that stall, you know what I would say? "Come in!" Not because I want him to or because I want to be a dick, but because that's the natural thing for me to say in response to that. Whenever you hear someone knock you usually say "Come in," right? Don't knock on a door, for God's sake, that's just so stupid.
I thus have decided I need to give a subtle hint to anyone who even walks into the men's room that I am in here. You think that the shuffling of feet or the unspooling of the toilet paper would be enough of an audio cue for strangers to go find another place to excrete. I don't think so. Therefore, whenever I hear that bathroom door swing open, I cough. And you know, more than several times I hear feet, then nothing, then a noise akin to the twisting of said feet, and then steps getting quieter and quieter. Phew!
But one time I got caught, sort of. I hear a guy come in; I cough. He either was using the urinal all along or he, well, decided to pee instead of shit. After he began urinating he called out to me, "I like your territorial cough!" he said. He was making light of a situation he's probably been in too. Nevertheless what he said was also an invasion of my privacy. So I don't think I said anything. Hopefully I didn't.
I think I know the guy. He works in my room.
Finally, the other day there was this guy who realized I was inside this one-stall bathroom ... and waited. Waited! How fucking creepy is that?! Once I was in there for a couple minutes and heard sounds that sounded like a guy standing in line I had it. I think I farted all I could fart and I bolted out of there. And you know the worst thing about that? This same guy did it to me again later that afternoon!!! This second time I just dropped my pants and sat down (same bathroom) when this same fucking asshole came in. Thirty seconds in I knew he was waiting for me. I didn't know if I had shit in me I had to shit out, but at that point I was like, "Fuck you and fuck this!" and I got up and left. He hasn't done it again, and as I left I heard some violently farting noises, so it appears as though he had to wait for it to open because he was suffering from diarrhea. But man, this goes to show that doing your business in public is no fun at all.
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