Minding Your Pees and Poos – Addendum II

I finally have my computer (and my body) up and running, its nice to be back.  This is not really the topic that I wanted to make my triumphant return with, but nevertheless it is on my mind, and other posts are still in their working stages.

As  you may remember from earlier posts, I am rather stringent with my requirements for proper bathroom etiquette.  Well friends, I am here to admit that yours truly violated these very rules.  I was in too deep when I began these utter transgressions, and I could no longer see the bottom (not the greatest image for a bathroom).

Having sat at my computer through much of the late night six overtime classic between Big East powerhouses Syracuse and UConn, I was a bit tired the next day, but thrilled at the competitiveness of NCAA basketball.  I was not in my right mind when I began an ill-advised bathroom conversation about the game while on equal footing (both people at the sink), and then I absolutely lost my mind with egregious decision to keep the conversation going as the playing fields became decidedly unequal  (urinal – sink).  I was so pumped about the game that I couldn’t stop talking about it, fully knowing I was trampling all over proper bathroom etiquette.  I almost cringed at this realization, it was an awful few minutes.

Today, my boss actually ran into my while I was exiting the bathroom.  I had singled him out as someone who seemed to fully grasp the tricky nuances of bathroom etiquette, but I rushed to judgment.  Stopping someone for a conversation while they’re on their way out of the bathroom is just poor form.*  Not only was this conversation unnecessary in occurrence, but length as well.  As he is the CEO, I couldn’t abruptly end the conversation, but it still had no need to continue for nearly 5 minutes.  This allowed someone else to enter  the bathroom and “wash their hands”**  Having a conversation in the bathroom is the antithesis of communication.  You can’t be open or candid, you can’t really talk with your hands, because they’re doing other things***.  If you laugh too hard, people will wonder about you, since the office bathroom is not a very humorous place.  Even if it were, chances are the lingering stench of that co-worker who went on a bender, or frequents Taco Bell for lunch, is slowly permeating the air.  Bad news all around.

Even outside of the office bathroom, where the rules are relaxed, the transgressions can be even more spectaular.  I was out on the town with my friends at a pub in the middle of the day when my friend returned from the bathroom with a look of white faced horror.  As he stammered and told it “There was a dude in the middle urinal with hs pants around his ankles, underwear about his knees, handling his business…”  He was mortified as I responded with an inappropriately loud laugh.  Forget about bathroom etiquette, this isn’t even proper “adult etiquette”  Sad.

Just stop talking in the bathroom, that is all we ask.

*”exiting the bathroom” begins as soon as you shut off the water in the sink, its a very fluid series of steps that should never be interrupted, ever.

**We have a kitchen and little Purrel bottles all over the office, I do believe he just couldn’t stand to do bathroom business while other people were having a conversation.  I would have done the same thing.

***If they’re not, that means you’re peeing on the floor, and that is despicable

Minding your P’s and Poos

Hello bloggers and bloggettes, I come to you in the midst of a visual blog transformation, please don’t take offense at the grainy picture.  Squint you eyes and it will make sense, but I’m not an eye doctor, and we’ll have that straightened out soon.

Each person has their own way of staying motivated and focused during the course of any given day.  My coping mechanism is to drink absurd amounts of water.  This keeps me healthy, and since I really only drink water and alcohol, it also keeps my system going.  Basically, getting up to pee every 2 hours is what I do.  This affords me a rare opportunity to observe how people act*  I do think there is a unwritten set of rules that govern bathroom behavior in any corporate loo.**

The most egregious of bathroom sins is the unsolicited greeting.  No matter what time of day, there is no excuse to start talking the instant you walk in the bathroom.  I never want to talk to you, EVER while I’m in the bathroom, unless we both happen to be washing our hands at precisely the same time.  If I’m urinating and your washing your hands, we’re not on equal footing and we shouldn’t be talking.  If we’re both at the urinals there is NO WAY we should be talking.  That rule about being able to look at the wall and talk to the person next to you is even creepier, so don’t do it.  If it were acceptable to talk to someone while at the stalls, there wouldn’t be this arcane rule about where you can and can not look.  Anyone “taking the Browns to the Super Bowl*** might as well have a muzzle on.  There is no sound that should emerge from that area other than the mandatory courtesy flush, the putrid odor speaks for itself.

…not in the bathroom gentlemen…

Another piece of bathroom etiquette is the use of toilet paper.  It seems simple to just clean it up if it accidentally falls on the floor.  This would normally be attributed to outrageous laziness, but there is a far more sinister player at work here:

THE IDIOT WITH NO AIM WHATSOEVER. (i love how this sign is in yellow)

…seems clear to me…

I can’t fathom how you can progress far enough in life to the point where you are working at a company, ANY company (McDonalds, Google, AIG, Macy’s, whatever) and not know the importance of holding your manhood while you pee so that your millimeter monster doesn’t spray all over the floor or toilet seat.  Since no one wants to clean it up, as someone else probably sprayed the floor like it was on fire, the problem compounds. So I do not blame anyone for leaving that toilet paper on the floor.  You have my blessing.  Even in my workplace, where we have an oddly high urinal, there is no excuse to miss, ever.****

Basically, don’t talk or urinate on the floor and you’ll have mastered the unwritten rules of the corporate bathroom.  To become a true master of this domain you have to conquer one last fear.  If you spot a “leak” which is what you should always assume when you see a puddle if liquid on the floor, you must call it into maintenance.  You must do this despite the knowledge that on the other end of the phone someone is judging you and labelling you as the “Misser” or the one who stopped up the toilet with your ungodly bowels.  Conquer this fear and you will have ascended the most important of corporate ladders.

I may or may not have broken each of these rules at one time….

*If you’re judging, and wondering why I’m observing people in the bathroom, I have no answer.  oh..and f**k you.

**I was hanging out with a set of people over the weekend, and this girl kept referring to the bathroom as “the loo”.  Despite the fact that we were at a football game and a bar, I felt as if I was in a high class English tea room

***Best football analogy that makes little sense, but makes perfect sense

****The urinal is only a few inches higher than normal, but just enough that is positively terrifying.  Have you ever tried to open a door where the handle was a few inches to low and it felt weird?  This is sort of like that, except you’re dealing with all the grimulous matter that finds itself on the lip of the urinal (I just threw up in my mouth).  This actually caused one of my coworkers to quip “It’s so high, that on an bad day there might be contact”