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I had an interesting experience today. It happened in the john. (Yes, I have ranted about this before. Sorry. Apparently most of the interesting things in my life happen in the shitter) I should preface by explaining that I am an organism that intakes food matter, converts it to energy and expels the waste. Oh, you're like that, too? Cool, it will make this story easier to explain. Since we share the same intestine/colon/bowel structure, I'll assume that you've been in the situation where you simply gotta go bad...and there's no private bathroom available. When my company was small, the chances of having both stalls occupied was minimal. But now it's the norm. Every time I drop my drawers to do the dirtiest of deeds, I seem to have a stall mate a few feet away. I HATE looking down and seeing someone else's shoes popping out below. It's a big company, but not so big that a man's shoes doesn't give away who he is. In any case, today I sat down and, as usual, there was someone in the sister stall. (Side note, they should play music or, even better, have a fountain in the restroom. Nobody wants their body's sounds echoing off the tiles of a silent restroom. The fountain would even facilitate urination! But I digress.) Due to some cruel cosmic joke, our hygienic timing was almost exactly in sync. As I reached for the paper, I heard him reach for the paper. Oh-No. Nothing is worse than exiting a stall and making eye contact with someone that just heard you take a shit. So I slowed my pace to a languid wiping schedule. Best to let him exit the stall, wash his hands and leave the restroom first. But to my horror, he seemed to be slowing his pace too!!! It was like when you slow to let a merging car into your lane on the freeway, and they slow to let you go first. Eventually you're both slowed to a death crawl…Like some game of reverse chicken. On the freeway, the results could be a fiery car crash. And in the bathroom, the outcome is no less devastating. So what did I do? I sat my ass back down. I was silent…hoping my fellow squatter would comprehend my symbolic turn signal. And before long, I heard the stall door open, the sounds of washing hands (thank god) and the bathroom door exit as my comrade vacated the battleground. Sigh. Such a basic bodily function shouldn't be this complicated.
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