I work in a large local government building with over a hundred other women. The bathroom for the area I work has five, count 'em, five regular stalls and one large stall equipped for the handicapped. Let me correct myself..I mean physically challenged. Never say handicapped because it'll get you in big trouble with the higher ups. These are the days of political correctness you know. I hate being forced to be politically correct.
This particular bathroom is a "fragrance free" area. Yes, thanks to the delicate sensiblities of one or two the entire department is forced to use facilities that reek of human waste. For them eau de feces is apparently preferable to a spritz of Glade. I will never understand this. As an added bonus the designers of this "environmentally correct" building, in their infinite wisdom, installed low flow toilets. I'm fairly certain that someone with a penis is responsible for this design. Two of the toilets have to be flushed at least ten times to get toilet paper to disappear down the drain. How is that environmentally friendly????? How does that save water??? You learn quickly which stalls are the "good flushers".
So one bright sunny morning I have to pee. Now that I'm old I feel obligated to attempt to be healthy so I'm drinking more water. That's a whole other story though. Anyway I head straight for the handicapped stall (oh shi$..I said it again) because it's roomier and seems more private and my elbows don't hit the wall. It's also a consistantly good flusher. So anyway, I make my way to my favorite stall, walk in, shut the door, and OMG there's SKID MARKS IN THE TOILET.
Now I'm in a quandary. There's other people in here. Do I turn around and leave? If I do that, I know that there's gonna be someone who sees me leave and they're gonna walk directly to the stall I just left and now for the rest of their life, this person's gonna think I'm the leaver of skid marks. Do you see my predicament?
By now my bladder is screaming so I can't wait any longer. I flush the toilet to make sure it's not been plugged by the previous pooper. It flushes fine (it's the good flusher, remember)but the skid marks remain glued to the porcelain. How is that possible? So I place the requisite sanitary shield over the seat, because my mother told me that there are lots of terrible things you can get from sitting on an uncovered toilet seat, and am finally able to pee.
Yet another quandary self created because now I've placed myself in the position of being a double flusher. And everybody knows that nobody double flushes unless they've pooped. I'm starting to get all sweaty and silently pray the skid marks will be gone with this third flushing (I'm counting the original flush by the previous pooper). Either the answer was no or I'm just unlucky. Skid marks are still there. At this point I'm actually kind of amazed by this. I decide to behave like a mature adult. I mean, this isn't high school. So what do I do?? I wait until everyone has left the bathroom before I leave. It seemed like hours but I'm sure it was just a few minutes. Why do I care about this??? What's wrong with me???
I don't think men care about stuff like this. Men, for the most part, don't worry about sweat marks under their arms and I don't think there's many who would let themselves endure significant cramping just to avoid farting. I've actually seen men boldly take reading material into an office bathroom. Never have I seen a woman do this.
Most of the woman I know consider pooping an at home duty and most would rather do anything than poop in public bathrooms. Inevitably, it's going to happen. What do we do? We "sneak a poop". Sad but true. You can always tell the sneak a poopers (I know whereof I speak). Sitting silently. Waiting patiently for the other occupants to either leave them in peace or at least start flushing to cover up the noise they're afraid they're going to make. If you happen to notice a sneak a pooper in the bathroom, make it snappy and leave them in peace. Most women, myself included, are really ridiculous about bodily functions.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to laugh about it? We did when we were kids. I'm obviously never going to outgrow the immaturity of thinking farts are funny. But never in a million years, in a public bathroom, would I laugh out loud, thereby letting the fart emitter know she had been heard. I really want to though.
It's the stoopidist thing.
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