I have a difficult relationship with public bathrooms. I need complete and utter isolation to do my business—you know, Number 2. I'm very self-conscious about the smell, the sounds, the whole thing. My strategy has always been to only go when no one else is in there. A one-holer? Forget it. The risk that someone will be standing outside waiting is too high. Especially in an office where you'll see the same people day in and day out. If I walk into a bathroom and someone is already in one of the stalls, I will turn around and walk right back out. If someone is standing at the sink, making it awkward to simply turn around and leave, I will enter a stall and, depending on how long they're there, pretend to pee and then jet or wait them out.
If someone comes in once I'm in the stall and doing my business, I will stop the production line and wait. I've had some tense standoffs in the bathroom, waiting for however many women are coming and going to finally clear out. There's a woman in my office who brushes her teeth in the bathroom and she drives me bananas because it always seems that she needs to brush her teeth when I'm in there.
I tell you all of this to set the scene for this story. There's always a stall in every women's bathroom that is sort've the designated shitter. It's usually the one furthest from the door, or the handicapped stall. I paid a visit to this stall today at work, while the bathroom was empty and everyone was preparing for our Yankee Swap. Not long after I got comfortable someone else came in. I hunkered down to wait them out, and I start to hear a few...noises...coming from their stall. Nothing unusual, just the kind of thing that makes you bless the anonymity of the stall.
Suddenly the anonymity was broken. The other occupant of the bathroom called my name. She...called...my...name. I couldn't do anything but answer. I mean, she obviously knew I was in there. She clearly saw my shoes (damn my unfeminine Skechers boots in an office full of girlie girls!) and identified me. So I answered, and she announced that she was going to fart (ummm...yeah, you've kind've been doing that already). She apologized and explained that she'd had Mexican for lunch. Holy cow. Are we seriously having this conversation right now? So she farts, and I'm sitting there mortified for her and me. I'm pondering cutting it short and getting the hell out of there, but since she clearly already breached bathroom etiquette by engaging me in conversation I can't be guaranteed that she won't also choose to exit her stall, and then we'd have an awkward sink moment. So I wait, and a few minutes of silence go by, and she says, "This is awkward."
No shit.
I agree, and we lapse back into silence. I'm cringing here, just mortified. She finally flushes, washes, and leaves, and I'm left to process everything that transpired. I'm thinking about how I'm gonna face her in the office, and about how the pretense of anonymity in the bathroom has been shattered. We can never go back. I now know that people can identify me, and that no amount of quietly sitting is going to save face for me. She broke the fourth wall. Things will never be the same.
If only life were like this:
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