king me. sometimes when you're at work, you gotta go. it's not the ideal place to spell relief but sometimes, even if you've structured your diet and lifestyle accordingly, you just can't avoid the work place dump. this is not so bad if you work in an office with three or four people. i mean, at home you probably share the toilet with three or four people so you're used to a small number of exchanged germs. but what happens when you work in an environment with forty guys and one bathroom?



to its credit, my office maintains a very clean bathroom by office standards. it's no sanitary delight but it's no gas station bathroom either. we all know the fear and technique that goes into going number two in a public place. you try not to touch anything, you squat a foot in the air, you throw in toilet paper for cushioning against the inevitable splash down, you wipe the seat, you pray for your bowels to release quick and dirty and not slow and squirty -- after all, a man can only squat for so long. this is basic information.



but one specific situation is sometimes troubling. what happens when you are ready to go to the bathroom; you've mentally prepared yourself to go into the stall and do your business; you've waited till the absolute last minute to go; and then there's already somebody in there doing their thing. this is a difficult situation. you're stuck between a rock and a smelly place. you need to go real bad but you don't want to assume the position right after somebody else perched on the throne right? it would be ideal to wait five or ten minutes for the air to clear but in five or ten minutes you might explode. what do you do?



i try to minimize the mental anguish of this situation by trying to make the guy going before me as anonymous as possible. once i see that someone is in the stall, with feet facing the "right" way, i turn around and leave the bathroom. i try not to remember what shoes they were wearing, what color their pants/belts were and i station myself far from the bathroom in order to not to see him exit. i figure that the less i know about the person whose ass was just hovering in the same position as mine is now, the better. and that is what comes out of working on labor day. a lot of crap with nowhere to go.



by the way, this situation was related to me by a friend. i've like never gone through this personally. ever.



ps. it's shocking how many people don't wash their hand after using the bathroom. especially if there's somebody already using the sink. patience people! we work at a video game company, we touch shared controllers/keyboards all the time. wash your hands! i feel like i should bring in my latex smoking gloves and wear them for protection. this is just way too unsanitary.



pss. and i've seen some people actually take their food (on uncovered plates) into the bathroom, set it down somewhere, go take care of biz and then walk right back out and resume eating. what is this? what kind of a world do we live in? is there no hope?