Nothing to See Here…

They just put a new super-bionic thermal-nuclear powered AIR FRESHENER in the bathroom at my office location.

I’m trying not to take it personally.

To be honest, though, that damn thing makes me sneeze every time I walk in there.  And let’s face it– sneezing actually INCREASES the odds that I will stink up the bathroom (and embarrass myself beyond belief because I’m terrified of the sneeze-fart, I dread the sneeze-far, the sneeze-fart is my biggest fear!)

I have this love-hate relationship with bathrooms at the office.  OK, really it’s a hate-hate relationship - there is no love (except in the knowledge that *I* don’t have to clean those damn toilets).

I hate having to go #2 at work.  Hate it.  But what can you do?  Especially if you’re like me and taking Metformin twice a day.  Before the medication, I was as regular as ol’ faithful… every morning BEFORE WORK, as in AT HOME.  But now?  It could happen at anytime without notice.  So I’ve had to adjust.

I prefer to have the place to myself.  I try to time my visits to be outside of prime-potty-time (which is mainly right after lunch).  There are times I walk in and walk back out if there is too much stall-occupation going on.  There are times that someone walks in while I’m poised for action and I just wait them out, hoping they do not recognize my shoes.  I’ve never paid any attention to other people’s shoes, but I’m always worried about the recognizability of my shoes.  Oh my god, they’ll see these are my shoes and they’ll know that I POOP!!!!

I have done the toe-tap or the throat-clearing trick, which is a non-verbal way to say “Hey, I’m in here too so, you know, batton down the hatches so you don’t let out a huge fart while you’re going.”  Then again, some people are completely shameless about bodily noises in the public restroom.  Seriously.  I wish I was like them.  They are all “My body makes noises when I poop and pee and I don’t CARE if you don’t like it, it’s just the way it is.” 

These are the same people who talk on cell phones in the public restroom.  I did that once, when my cell phone was new.  I realized the error of my ways when I was STUCK - I couldn’t get my pantyhose up, I couldn’t allow it to flush, and yet there were many flushes around me so the person on the other end obviously had to know what I had done.  He got 3 points for not laughing out loud right then and there.  I’ve never answered my phone while in the john since then.

There are other tricks of the trade.  Sometimes one must use the double-flush.  Sometimes it’s prudent to see if the toilet paper roll might make a bit of noise to camoflage anything that needs camoflaging.  I’ll stop just shy of singing Row Row Row Your Boat to cover up the natural sounds of defecation.

There have been a few times I have gone into the separate handicapped john.  This gives me all the privacy I need but it’s a little awkward washing my hands in a sink that is at knee level.  Plus the mirror over the sink just shows me my crotch, and, really, who needs to see that?

I remember watching tha Ally McBeal show thinking I could not work there.  I simply couldn’t.  That whole shared restroom model, all that talking in the freaking bathroom - I’m sorry, nope, not for me.

I’m at that place where I don’t know how to end the post.  Have you ever been there?  The truth is that you people are damn lucky that some of my posts don’t go on and on and on and on indefinitely simply because I don’t know how to wrap it up.

I think I’ll do it with a picture.  They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words.  In this case, I think it’s clear what those 1,000 words are.  It screams out to me “Oh, god - I have a flaky mother determined to pass along all her issues to to us innocent, innocent children insuring we face a lifetime of bathroom worrying in our futures…”

The End.

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