Bathroom Etiquette

It has recently come to my attention that there is a socially deviant behavior prominent here in these United States which wants a code of etiquette to smooth out the friction of our interactions. I am writing of the phenomenon of talking to oneself in a public restroom. Like masturbation, nose-picking and listening to Air Supply, talking to oneself is a benign enough activity in which many engage but which no one wants anyone else to think they engage in. The humble blogger himself engages in two of the three above activities but has the sense to do it only when he is quite sure that he is alone. And there is the rub.

The other day your humble blogger was occupied with a certain activity which is similar to the ones listed above in that it is best done in private but differs from them in that there is no way to deny that one partakes in it. If one is to live, one must eat. And if one must eat, one must occasionally visit a restroom, and once in a while there is no other option than a public restroom. Having chosen the stall at the far end, I sat quite alone, taking care of business with the expertise that comes from decades of practice, when suddenly the door burst open, announcing that company had arrived. This is only to be expected in the oft-frequented tile surroundings in which I found myself, so, perfectly unperturbed, I carried on in silent determination. What was not to be expected was that the newcomer would begin to engage himself in a half-coherent conversation.

I do not know exactly what the discussion was about, only that the man felt passionately about it and the same sentence was repeated several times. He may have been practicing for a play, but I think it more likely he had just had an argument and was going over the line he should have said, but which had not occurred to him until too late. So far as I could tell, he never once visited a stall but went right to the sink to wash his hands, beginning his monologue as soon as the water was flowing. When his hands were washed and dried he began to pace back and forth with short, furious steps, whirling about when he reached a wall to walk in the opposite direction, all the while muttering to himself.

The good reader can imagine my condition at this point. There was no way to extricate myself from the situation. Possessing a kindly heart, I had no wish to embarrass the poor chap who was obviously already distraught. The only other remedy was to wait it out in silence until, none the wiser, he finally left. But silence – real silence – is a difficult thing, especially in a bathroom which echoes. The body, even when not moving, is apt to make all sorts of sounds, and the business that I was in the middle of entailed certain other noises that only a dogged clenching could forestall. So I clenched. As God is my witness I clenched for the poor man’s dignity. Against forces of nature that fought the clenching I clenched, praying that it would not occur to him to begin a belated search for other occupants.

Finally, having purged himself of emotional demons, he left and allowed me to resume the purging that is more proper to a room of that kind, a purging which does to a toilet essentially the same thing that a politician does to a microphone. But I had only enough time to chuckle at the experience before the door once again was opened and another man walked in. This one was a good deal heavier than the previous man, and from the thud of his waddling I imagined an expansive midsection, probably one that drooped over his beltline. He approached a urinal, the sound of a zipper being opened rang out, and thereupon followed a very predictable sound, somewhat covered by his labored breathing.

He had not, as it turned out, become aware of my presence, a fact I deduced when he began to converse with himself while standing at the urinal. This conversation was unlike the passionate yet ultimately diffident muttering of the previous autolocutor; it was a deep, rumbling, fearless baritone which set the room echoing like a firecracker in a cave. One advantage of speaking with oneself, I suppose, is that there is no question of misunderstanding, so little things like moving your lips and tongue to enunciate become unimportant. What poured out of the man was half way between speech and groaning. I can only say that I detected a growing satisfaction in the sounds he emitted until he finally withdrew from the urinal. It was then that I, called upon once again to preserve the dignity of my fellow man, was forced to guard my clenching silence while the other, his conversation finished, stood at the sink, breathing heavily and cleansing his hands. The ordeal did finally end, and when the man had left I made sure to expedite my processes in case there was something behind these bizarre events other than random chance, something which might at any moment send my way another twit with a full bladder and something to say.

I relate this story to the gentle reader with the public welfare in mind. Perhaps some good may come of my hardships. Apparently, some of you out there are given to self-directed speech, and this is perfectly fine with me. But do me a favor, and I shall do my part to help us both out. The next time you enter a bathroom for the purpose of discourse, take the one and a half seconds required to squat down and search for other occupants. Most bathroom stall walls do not reach the ground, and most people leave their feet on the floor when they occupy them, which gives anyone else an excellent opportunity to take a quick census of the local population. For my part, I shall undertake to cough whenever I hear someone enter the bathroom to let them know that just right then is not the best time to practice oratory. Etiquette, my friends, is the key to civilization. Please do your part to make our public restrooms more civilized.