Today’s story consists of much toilet humor. I’m not talking about poopie and pee-pee jokes, but actual toilet humor (at least that’s my intent).So, if you don’t want to read about that or get to know WAY too much about me, please discontinue reading at this point. I promise more good and wholesome Ben stories are on the way, but today is not that day.
For anyone still reading I want to let you know that I pride myself on being able to out wait anybody in a bathroom stall. It is a personal preference of mine that when I have to do that thing in the bathroom that everyone does and most everyone is ashamed of (pooping – not the other thing) I want it to be quiet. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. As a result I often spend a good amount of time in a public bathroom stall just sitting there with my pants around my knees while I wait for everyone else in there to clear out leaving me with my required silence. To pass the time I will usually go through my phone and delete all of my texts and voice messages, play Tetris, and delete the 10 or so pictures that I always seem to take of the inside of my pants pocket. That usually gives me ample time for the bathroom to clear out so that I do my business.
Usually
Now, I’ve been known to spend upwards of 20 minutes in a stall before while waiting for my silence. At my current job I really have no defined break time and, quite honestly, if I was gone from my desk for 3-4 hours at a time, very few people (if anyone) would question my absence. As a result, I am free to take as much time as necessary to ensure my restroom solitude before returning to my daily routine of Facebook updates and taste tests.
At the job prior to this, I was once interrupted in the middle of my fecal act because I had been away from my desk for more than 10 minutes without letting anyone know where I was. Once my location had been determined, I was asked to “hurry up” because I had a customer waiting on the phone. Yes, I’m serious. Obviously, due to my time constraints there it took a little more planning to locate an empty bathroom at a given time. But I was smart enough to know that the guys on the floor all went on break at the same time. If I waited until their break was over, I could go down to the first floor, use their bathroom, and not be bothered for the entire 10 minutes that I was allotted by Big Brother. Or, sometimes I would use the executive bathroom on my floor because the TP was softer and there was mouthwash on the counter. It made me feel fancy.
Here is where it gets interesting.
My first grown-up job was for a payroll company out of West County in St. Louis. I didn’t like it there and did a horrible job as a result. Oddly enough, I was able to stay on for four and a half years (they tried firing me after three but I convinced them otherwise) and actually learned a lot. Now, this company was located in an office complex in which there was one bathroom per sex per floor. As a result, the bathroom belonged to multiple companies and it was impossible to determine who would be in there and when. Since I worked around the front desk of my department, I was able to see what guys were leaving the office and when so I was often able to get their schedule down and plan mine around it. The problem was that there was also another door in which guys could sneak out and really throw off my timing. Additionally, I had the guys from the other offices on our floor to contend with, so it was really a crapshoot every day.
On this particular day I hadn’t seen any men leaving the office for quite some time and, as my stomach decided, it was getting to be time to go. When I got into the bathroom I was lucky enough to find no one else in there so I went into the stall, shut the door, and prepared myself for my appointment. As I sat down though, I heard the door open and someone else come in. No big deal as I said before, I pride myself in being able to out wait anyone in a bathroom stall. At that point in the technological age all my cell phone did was make phone calls, so I was stuck just sitting there with nothing to do. Eventually, the man finished his urinary donation and went to the sink to wash his hands. As he was turning off the water, I prepared myself mentally for a quick release in case someone came in soon after him. Well, I didn’t even need to wait that long because as the first gentleman was drying his hands, the bathroom door opened and not one, but two guys walked in. One of them went to the urinal and the other went into a stall. The guy at the urinal finished up quickly, washed his hands, and left but the gentleman that had gone into the stall was being eerily quiet.
I had another waiter.
At this point I had been waiting in the stall for about 5 minutes. While some may say that it’s ridiculous and that I should just go ahead and go, you must understand that this isn’t something that I choose to do, it is (or was) a necessity. If I’ve ever had OCD about something, it was that. Back in those days I was hesitant to even gamble on a fart in case I lost and it came out loud and strong. As a result, public bathroom trips were sometimes a painstaking process. They became even more painstaking when you had another waiter that you were competing against.
For the next couple of minutes, there was a lot of posturing going on. We both realized that the other was waiting for them to finish and leave so that we could go about our own business, but we also (as all waiters are smart enough to do) realized that the other guy was a waiter and this was going to be a standoff. It was all going to come down to who wanted it more. To taunt one another, we would trade the occasional forced cough for two reasons: 1) to let the other guy know you were still there, and 2) to possibly make him think that you were coughing to cover some other noise. If you were coughing to cover another noise, then maybe you were on the verge of giving in and the other guy would soon be able doubly enjoy his pooh both for the victory and for the release.
This game of fake coughing and silence went on for about another 10 minutes making my total bathroom time 15 minutes or so. I began to think that maybe I’d be missed at my desk after awhile, but then realized that I hated it there and didn’t give a crap no matter what they thought. I wasn’t worried about my health either as it wasn’t as if it was painful to not go. The thing with waiters is that we know roundabout when we’re going to have to go so we pick our moment not because we HAVE to go, but because we could go at any time. Soon, 15 minutes turned to 16, then 17, and then 18 and I realized I was dealing with a pro.
I’ve waited out the best of them. I’ve waited out janitors and I’ve waited out Executives (you can always tell the Executives because of their willingness to fart out loud in the bathroom and their nice shoes). I’ve waited through sounds and smells that you can’t even imagine and I choose not to remember. The trick to waiting is knowing that you’re in for a battle and knowing your limitations. Apparently, the other guy had limitations that he had to adhere to because all of a sudden I heard him cough - but the cough wasn’t alone. Along with the cough came the sound of defeat. It was the sound of being only second best on that given day. It was the sound of that gaseous emission that there is no turning back from.
He was gonna poop
I’ll spare you the details of the rest of his time in the stall, but I will let you know that he sounded both very relieved and very pissed. No waiter likes to lose (I’m guessing – I’ve never lost) and to do so in front of another waiter must be humiliating. As he tore open the stall door and reached the sink, he turned the water on with the same great force and anger as he next pulled the paper towels out to dry his hands. He was angry, but I didn’t care. I had won and my time had now arrived to do my business.
Or so I thought.\
As he opened the bathroom door to leave, I heard him greet two more gentlemen at the door with a “Hi” and the tone of “we’ve got a waiter in there and he’s good – maybe the best I’ve ever seen.” As the two new guys walked in, they luckily both approached the urinals and did their business there. When they were done, however, they didn’t leave the bathroom. They stood at the sink, washed their hands, and then began talking about work. For a long time.
Now, sitting on a toilet for 20 plus minutes isn’t hard to do. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. The problem is that once your body is in a certain position for a certain amount of time, it begins to expect the results that the position usually delivers. As a result, my body now told me that it was time to go.
For the next five minutes or so, while the two guys outside of my stall were bitching about raises and bonuses and PTO and 401k, I was inside of my stall holding my breath and clenching my butt cheeks together in an attempt to not do what so needed to be done. At one point I gambled on a fart or two and thankfully won, but that only made the situation worse. Finally, FINALLY, the two guys left the bathroom (I think they heard my hushed chanting of “leave, f*ckers, leave”) and I was free to do my stuff. At this point I figure that I had probably been in that bathroom stall on that toilet for close to 30 minutes (a new personal record). I had won the battle AND the war and it was now time to get back to work.
This is where it gets funny
If you’ve ever sat on a toilet for 30 minutes or so, you realize that it’s not very comfortable. You also realize that the padding that is available on couches, love seats, recliners, etc. is there for more than one purpose. The first purpose is to provide comfort as you relax in said piece of furniture. The second purpose is to prevent your body from resting on any type of hard surface that may cut off circulation say, oh, from your ass all the way down to your feet.
As I stood up to pull up my pants, the realization of that second purpose became all too clear. The second I stood up my legs realized that they had no blood flow in them and hadn’t for the past 30 minutes, so they decided to rebel against me and just collapse. Luckily, I have cat-like reflexes and was able to grab the toilet paper dispenser on the way down so that I didn’t hit my head on anything. Instead of just resting there until I got feeling back in my legs, however, I decided that I had been gone from my desk long enough and that I really needed to get back (must have been the blood rushing from my brain to fill my legs). Anyway, with the circulation slowly returning, I was able to stand up and walk to the sink, but not very well. The best way I can describe this style of walk is that it looked like a marionette with the wobbly legs bending anytime the puppeteer touches them to the ground. It wasn’t natural and it wasn’t coordinated, but I was walking.
As I realized how ridiculous I looked and the even more ridiculous reason that I did look like that, I began laughing. Not just normal laughing, but hysterical laughing. So, if you can picture walking into a bathroom and seeing some maniac laughing hysterically while “walking” around on legs that look like they’ve been borrowed from someone else for the day, you can pretty much picture what our regional manager, who was in town for a visit, saw when he stepped through the door.
He asked me if I was okay but I couldn’t stop laughing. I got out enough of a “yes” to prevent him from calling the paramedics, but let’s just say that the company rolled out a health plan that focused on drug addiction soon afterwards. Eventually, after standing at the sink long enough to get most of the feeling back in my legs and finally stop laughing, I washed my hands and went back to my desk. It had been 35 minutes since I left my desk and not one person asked me where I had been or if I was okay. The regional manager gave me the kind of smile that you would give a mentally deranged homeless person every time they asked you for some spare change whenever he walked by, but other than that, no one cared.
I wanted to and should have shared my story with them at that time because, honestly, without my reenactment of “the walk”, I can’t do this story justice. Maybe I knew at that time that 10 years later I’d have a blog and could write about it then. Maybe I knew that if there are still waiters out there today, they could pull this story up on their iPhone or Blackberry to kill the time while waiting. Either way, I need to stop writing because nature is calling and there is no telling how long I’m gonna be in there.
Thanks for reading.
/
ReplyDelete