RULES OF THE STALL
Okay, so I know that I bombarded y'all with a boring self-deprecating Chronicles last night, but I witnessed...well, not quite witnessed, but HEARD...something this afternoon that completely freaked me out. This led to a plethora of countless memories and conversations, to come flooding back to me, which leads to this...another Chronicles. However, this time there will be one subject, and one subject only. And with that, I introduce you to....
HEATHER'S RULES TO PUBLIC TOILET SAFETY & ETIQUETTE
HEATHER'S RULES TO PUBLIC TOILET SAFETY & ETIQUETTE
1. DO NOT BRING YOUR CELL PHONE INTO THE TOILET!
I was in a stall when apparently someone's phone rang on vibrate. I did not hear it vibrate however, and just heard "Hello?" I was quiet, as I wasn't sure if they were talking to me. I thought if so, I was going to be asked for some toilet paper.
"How's it going?" I'm freaked out. "What?" I ask. The girl then starts into a conversation that becomes obvious that she is on the phone. I'm disgusted and irritated. I mean, in the personal privacy of your own home, whatever, but in a public bathroom? That's just wrong.
So today I'm in the stall and I have to poop. I hear rustling in another stall and then silence. A fellow pooper hoping I just have to pee and waiting for some bodily noise to announce that I'm on her team and that she can go ahead and proceed. So I fart to make my intentions known and I assume she will proceed her business and exit before me since she was there first.
What happened next surprised me. I start hearing beeping. I look around confused. The beeping keeps going and it hits me...my God, this woman is text messaging someone in the toilet! I am floored and I start giggling with my sleeve over my mouth to muffle it. She keeps beeping her conversation in the toilet and I am cracking up and trying to finish up before I completely lose it.
She was still texting away when I was done and I washed my hands and exited as fast as I could. How can someone do this? Okay, so I think that my friend, who knows who he is, has done this once when...okay, that story will come next, but let's say it was an S.O.S. In life-saving cases, I can accept this, but I think this chick was just bored while she shat! So with that, keep the cell phones outside the stall, please!
2. DO NOT MASTURBATE IN PUBLIC RESTROOMS!
Typically I would assume that people just don't do this in public bathrooms. This is once again something to do in the privacy of your own home or wherever you choose to do it...WITHOUT STRANGERS PRESENT! However, my friend encountered a terrifying situation once that made me realize that this can happen to any of us.
He was at work, and had to take a dump. He goes into the bathroom and is mid-pooping when someone walks into the stall next to him. The rest is what I can recall to the best of my memory. I believe he said it was real quiet, and then he noticed the reflection in the tiles on the back wall. Through the crack of the back of the stalls, he can see someone facing the wall and watching him, and is masturbating while watching him poop! He is freaked out and horrified, and I believe tries to text his boyfriend who worked there, for help.
He finished up, but took note of the polluter's shoes and ran like hell. He later found the beholder of the shoes and was freaked out. Yes, we all need to relax to crap sometimes, but please do not get that relaxed!
3. DO NOT LEAVE LOGS!
I will once again, not mention names, but my friend, and she knows who she is, did this recently. While at work, she took a dump. All was well until she stood to find that it was soooo long, she didn't know if the turd was going to make it through the plumbing without plugging. She was so worried about the toilet overflowing that she just left it!
I lectured her on the absolute wrongness of this and shared my trick when faced with this fear. I will have my right hand on the flusher and one hand on the water shut-off valve. I then flush and if the water starts to rise I can quickly shut off the water and either plunge or run. Should there be no plunger, and I must run, at least the next visitor will see that the toilet was about to overflow and I abandoned shit...I mean ship, and I gate it my best shot. This will prevent the impression of a flat out lazy shitter who is too cool to flush.
When I was 18, I was engaged for some time to a man who apparently had too-long-shit syndrome. His sister told me of this, and also presented an amazing, yet revolting solution to this problem. Sean's turds were so long that when flushed, they would just swirl around, do it's little dance and stay behind Round 1 of water. They had to figure a way to get this turd down, and found a simple solution. Upon his relief, he was required to take the unwrapped coat hanger next to the toilet and break up the turd into bite-sized,
flushable pieces. It always worked!
So when faced with this situation, either give it your best shot, or break out the hanger!
4. DO NOT LEAVE BLOODY TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET
This kind of falls into the previous category about leaving remnants. We all know leaving your mark is just wrong, but blood? It's almost worse than a turd. This typically just requires a simple bowl check to ensure that everything made it's way down. However, sometimes we are faced with hardships that require us to think outside of the box.
There was a situation once, where another unnamed friend and I were in a wedding together. I did my business in my own unisex bathroom and she did hers in the other. Now, we both only peed, but there were some problems with the plumbing, and it boycotted my friend's toilet paper. I'm waiting outside her bathroom and then it all starts.
"Heather?"
"Yes?"
"Can you come in here?"
I walk in and the water level in the toilet has risen high, but stopped. Not a big deal, it's plugged. However, in it is bloody toilet paper. I try to plunge the toilet, but no water is going down. Now, this is before the wedding has even started and we have to walk down that aisle soon, and get this taken care of before others enter this bathroom.
We're freaking out and laughing our asses off, and then it hits me. We're going to have to do whatever is needed to get this out. No, we would never just grab it out. That is too disgusting. What ended up happening is that I instruct my friend to grab the garbage can and bring it near the toilet. I flip the plunger over so that my hand is still on the handle. With the very end of the handle, I wrestle the bloody TP around it and flick it into the garbage. We're both about to pee our pants at this point.
The TP is pretty water logged and starting to break up when the handle touches it, so this process goes on a lot longer than you think it should, but we got every last bit of the evidence, and the wedding went on. So, my friends, when faced with danger, remember that there are no rules to what it takes to prevent a heart attack for the next visitor.
5. DO NOT GO IN THE STALL NEXT TO ANOTHER IF AT ALL AVAILABLE.
My coworker came to me a few months ago and announced that she is very irritated with someone in the building. On numerous occasions, she has encountered the stall stalker, and it's always the same shoes. What is a stall stalker you ask? It is one who despite four empty stalls, goes into the stall right next to you.
I know you're not looking at the person in the face, but somehow the sight of shoes just inches away from yours is disturbing when you know the availability of so many other stalls. This somehow is just such an invasion of privacy. It's disturbing and irritating. My coworker keeps dibs on the stall stalker and has finally pinned it down to one of two people. We decided that an etiquette sheet should be posted in the bathroom to notify these poor souls who have lost in their path in the bathroom.
6. HANG ONTO THE WALL WHEN FLUSHING
Now this may seem quite disgusting, but I know of two cases where this could have helped out a scary situation. Hopefully you all flush the public toilet handles with your foot, should they have that kind of flusher. This is much more sanitary than sticking your hand on that nasty lever. However, something no one ever discusses is that there is only so much one is capable of when one foot is off the ground.
Many moons ago, when my mother and I worked together, she came back from the bathroom all freaked out and if I recall correctly, her foot was wet. She had gone to flush the toilet with her foot and lost her balance. If I recall correctly, when she lifted her foot to flush, her body shifted as she slammed her foot onto the lever and I'm almost positive that her foot went into the toilet. If it didn't I remember she smacked it on something or something like that. I just remember filling out a work-incident form for L&I as a joke about it.
A few weeks ago I went to flush the toilet with my foot and got a little too aggressive in the process. I slammed my foot down towards it and somehow it veered on it's way down and I kicked the metal tampon box with all my might. It luckily stayed on the stall wall, but it was LOUD! In fact I asked my friend who's office is on the other side of the wall if she heard it, and she thought that something had crashed in the kitchen.
All of this could have been prevented if we'd balanced ourselves out by holding onto the walls. So the next time you go to flush, instill this mantra in your head, "Hold the wall of the stall to prevent a fall."
****
So this has as usual, become way too long and I'm sure by now, my brother is completely irritated with me for discussing bowel movements and bloody toilet paper. Sorry Ry! It's just me, you know.
I hope you all will do your best to instill these rules into your next trip to the toilet! And with that, I leave you all a little song for the girls that I heard in Phoenix from a toilet training video. We could all learn a thing or two...
(To Row, Row, Row Your Boat)
Wipe, wipe, wipe yourself
Always front to back
There you go, there you go
Now you've got the knack!
Love to all!
Heather McDuffin
The Egg McMuffin
I was in a stall when apparently someone's phone rang on vibrate. I did not hear it vibrate however, and just heard "Hello?" I was quiet, as I wasn't sure if they were talking to me. I thought if so, I was going to be asked for some toilet paper.
"How's it going?" I'm freaked out. "What?" I ask. The girl then starts into a conversation that becomes obvious that she is on the phone. I'm disgusted and irritated. I mean, in the personal privacy of your own home, whatever, but in a public bathroom? That's just wrong.
So today I'm in the stall and I have to poop. I hear rustling in another stall and then silence. A fellow pooper hoping I just have to pee and waiting for some bodily noise to announce that I'm on her team and that she can go ahead and proceed. So I fart to make my intentions known and I assume she will proceed her business and exit before me since she was there first.
What happened next surprised me. I start hearing beeping. I look around confused. The beeping keeps going and it hits me...my God, this woman is text messaging someone in the toilet! I am floored and I start giggling with my sleeve over my mouth to muffle it. She keeps beeping her conversation in the toilet and I am cracking up and trying to finish up before I completely lose it.
She was still texting away when I was done and I washed my hands and exited as fast as I could. How can someone do this? Okay, so I think that my friend, who knows who he is, has done this once when...okay, that story will come next, but let's say it was an S.O.S. In life-saving cases, I can accept this, but I think this chick was just bored while she shat! So with that, keep the cell phones outside the stall, please!
2. DO NOT MASTURBATE IN PUBLIC RESTROOMS!
Typically I would assume that people just don't do this in public bathrooms. This is once again something to do in the privacy of your own home or wherever you choose to do it...WITHOUT STRANGERS PRESENT! However, my friend encountered a terrifying situation once that made me realize that this can happen to any of us.
He was at work, and had to take a dump. He goes into the bathroom and is mid-pooping when someone walks into the stall next to him. The rest is what I can recall to the best of my memory. I believe he said it was real quiet, and then he noticed the reflection in the tiles on the back wall. Through the crack of the back of the stalls, he can see someone facing the wall and watching him, and is masturbating while watching him poop! He is freaked out and horrified, and I believe tries to text his boyfriend who worked there, for help.
He finished up, but took note of the polluter's shoes and ran like hell. He later found the beholder of the shoes and was freaked out. Yes, we all need to relax to crap sometimes, but please do not get that relaxed!
3. DO NOT LEAVE LOGS!
I will once again, not mention names, but my friend, and she knows who she is, did this recently. While at work, she took a dump. All was well until she stood to find that it was soooo long, she didn't know if the turd was going to make it through the plumbing without plugging. She was so worried about the toilet overflowing that she just left it!
I lectured her on the absolute wrongness of this and shared my trick when faced with this fear. I will have my right hand on the flusher and one hand on the water shut-off valve. I then flush and if the water starts to rise I can quickly shut off the water and either plunge or run. Should there be no plunger, and I must run, at least the next visitor will see that the toilet was about to overflow and I abandoned shit...I mean ship, and I gate it my best shot. This will prevent the impression of a flat out lazy shitter who is too cool to flush.
When I was 18, I was engaged for some time to a man who apparently had too-long-shit syndrome. His sister told me of this, and also presented an amazing, yet revolting solution to this problem. Sean's turds were so long that when flushed, they would just swirl around, do it's little dance and stay behind Round 1 of water. They had to figure a way to get this turd down, and found a simple solution. Upon his relief, he was required to take the unwrapped coat hanger next to the toilet and break up the turd into bite-sized,
flushable pieces. It always worked!
So when faced with this situation, either give it your best shot, or break out the hanger!
4. DO NOT LEAVE BLOODY TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET
This kind of falls into the previous category about leaving remnants. We all know leaving your mark is just wrong, but blood? It's almost worse than a turd. This typically just requires a simple bowl check to ensure that everything made it's way down. However, sometimes we are faced with hardships that require us to think outside of the box.
There was a situation once, where another unnamed friend and I were in a wedding together. I did my business in my own unisex bathroom and she did hers in the other. Now, we both only peed, but there were some problems with the plumbing, and it boycotted my friend's toilet paper. I'm waiting outside her bathroom and then it all starts.
"Heather?"
"Yes?"
"Can you come in here?"
I walk in and the water level in the toilet has risen high, but stopped. Not a big deal, it's plugged. However, in it is bloody toilet paper. I try to plunge the toilet, but no water is going down. Now, this is before the wedding has even started and we have to walk down that aisle soon, and get this taken care of before others enter this bathroom.
We're freaking out and laughing our asses off, and then it hits me. We're going to have to do whatever is needed to get this out. No, we would never just grab it out. That is too disgusting. What ended up happening is that I instruct my friend to grab the garbage can and bring it near the toilet. I flip the plunger over so that my hand is still on the handle. With the very end of the handle, I wrestle the bloody TP around it and flick it into the garbage. We're both about to pee our pants at this point.
The TP is pretty water logged and starting to break up when the handle touches it, so this process goes on a lot longer than you think it should, but we got every last bit of the evidence, and the wedding went on. So, my friends, when faced with danger, remember that there are no rules to what it takes to prevent a heart attack for the next visitor.
5. DO NOT GO IN THE STALL NEXT TO ANOTHER IF AT ALL AVAILABLE.
My coworker came to me a few months ago and announced that she is very irritated with someone in the building. On numerous occasions, she has encountered the stall stalker, and it's always the same shoes. What is a stall stalker you ask? It is one who despite four empty stalls, goes into the stall right next to you.
I know you're not looking at the person in the face, but somehow the sight of shoes just inches away from yours is disturbing when you know the availability of so many other stalls. This somehow is just such an invasion of privacy. It's disturbing and irritating. My coworker keeps dibs on the stall stalker and has finally pinned it down to one of two people. We decided that an etiquette sheet should be posted in the bathroom to notify these poor souls who have lost in their path in the bathroom.
6. HANG ONTO THE WALL WHEN FLUSHING
Now this may seem quite disgusting, but I know of two cases where this could have helped out a scary situation. Hopefully you all flush the public toilet handles with your foot, should they have that kind of flusher. This is much more sanitary than sticking your hand on that nasty lever. However, something no one ever discusses is that there is only so much one is capable of when one foot is off the ground.
Many moons ago, when my mother and I worked together, she came back from the bathroom all freaked out and if I recall correctly, her foot was wet. She had gone to flush the toilet with her foot and lost her balance. If I recall correctly, when she lifted her foot to flush, her body shifted as she slammed her foot onto the lever and I'm almost positive that her foot went into the toilet. If it didn't I remember she smacked it on something or something like that. I just remember filling out a work-incident form for L&I as a joke about it.
A few weeks ago I went to flush the toilet with my foot and got a little too aggressive in the process. I slammed my foot down towards it and somehow it veered on it's way down and I kicked the metal tampon box with all my might. It luckily stayed on the stall wall, but it was LOUD! In fact I asked my friend who's office is on the other side of the wall if she heard it, and she thought that something had crashed in the kitchen.
All of this could have been prevented if we'd balanced ourselves out by holding onto the walls. So the next time you go to flush, instill this mantra in your head, "Hold the wall of the stall to prevent a fall."
****
So this has as usual, become way too long and I'm sure by now, my brother is completely irritated with me for discussing bowel movements and bloody toilet paper. Sorry Ry! It's just me, you know.
I hope you all will do your best to instill these rules into your next trip to the toilet! And with that, I leave you all a little song for the girls that I heard in Phoenix from a toilet training video. We could all learn a thing or two...
(To Row, Row, Row Your Boat)
Wipe, wipe, wipe yourself
Always front to back
There you go, there you go
Now you've got the knack!
Love to all!
Heather McDuffin
The Egg McMuffin
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