Ninjas of the Restroom

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Buy A Musical Instrument Day

 

Pet Peeve #478

 

When you go into a public bathroom and see that the other stall is occupied, or somebody enters another stall while you’re in there, and what follows is … dead silence.  Not just the lack of bodily function noises, but the total absence of any sound, as though the feet you can see under the partition belong to a corpse.* There is no shuffling, no sounds of peeing, no toilet paper obtaining, no pad crinkle noises, no flushing, no evidence of life other than a pair of motionless feet.

 

And you are left to go about your business with your own shuffling and toilet papering and flushing, as well as possibly making a couple of more embarrassing noises, and you know that the entire time the person in the other stall is not in fact attending to their own damn business, but is neurotically listening to all of your sounds so that they’ll know when you’ve left so that they can continue without the humiliating truth that they may make a Noise that a stranger who knows nothing about them except what shoes they’re wearing will hear. It seems to me that a little noise is a lesser embarrassment than that of sitting around listening to other people unload their burdens, and it also seems more comfortable to get it done with.

 

Although one of these days I may do a study involving sitting in a stall with a stopwatch and seeing how long it takes the other person to cave in. I can be mean like that.

 

 

*Or, in the case of the people who come in after you, a very fresh corpse. Or a zombie.

Comments

[wyndfire.livejournal.com]

to really annoy these people... leave your stall and take a REALLY long time washing your hands. Maybe wash them twice. Or, if you can, reapply ALL of your make-up with painstaking slowness. ;)

[die-monster.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I am one of those people. I have never gotten over my bathroom neurosis; next year, when I will be sharing a bathroom in a house-like setting with non-family for the first time in my life, I don't know what I'll do. Have to get over it, I guess. But I can not poop where others will hear me. It's like a compulsion. I'm sorry I'm one of those people

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, so am I. I hate people listening to me, which is why this is a pet peeve of mine ~ because I know the other person is paying more attention to me than to their own problems. My worst nightmares involve toilets in VERY public places, so I know what you mean. Good luck next year. ;)

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

In Japan, they sell these little electronic noisemaker boxes that pump out white noise, for women who are afraid that nearby people will overhear them making "unladylike" noises such as (god forbid) flushing in public restrooms.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I'd read that. I also read that some Japanese women will suffer self-inflicted constipation because they won't go to the bathroom during work hours for fear that someone will note the length of their absence and surmise what they've been doing.

Now that I could not do.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I read some article a couple of years ago about someone who'd come up with tablets to keep one's solid waste from being stinky. The tablets were for those same Japanese women inflicting constipation on themselves because they didnt' have enough time to use the toilet before they went to work, and wouldn't during work hours because the smell would be too humiliating.

Me, I just don't care. That's what the air fresheners in the bathrooms are for, after all.

[ms-issicran.livejournal.com]

I don't go out of my way to be obnoxious sounding, but I'm in the room where all those noises are supposed to happen. I can't for the life of me figure out why women would censor themselves in there...what's the alternative? I wish we could all be more comfortable with the animals we are.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I honestly don't feel comfortable in any public washrooms, ever. In fact most houses are built with a lot less privacy than I care for, and hearing people talk to each other in washrooms or through washroom doors just makes me want to go *headdesk*. I don't feel comfortable with talking or even thinking about washrooms or anything which goes on in or around them. I wish I could exist without having to eat or digest anything at all, really. :-/ I'm part of that 1% of the population popular culture and the media seem to think it's okay to make fun of.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's too bad. I agree that restrooms don't feel private enough, especially public ones, and I avoid them whenever possible. But sometimes they're necessary.

I often wonder why we have such trouble with that sort of thing. It might be some kind of primal fear ~ relieving yourself makes you very vulnerable. That's why it bothers us.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

On a cheerier note, I didn't know "But it's only a paper moon" as a Sinatra song - that really makes the whole DS9 episode with Vic Fontaine which was called that be put in context for me. ^.^

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Is that the one with Nog? I know Vic actually sings that song at one point.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Yes, that's the one in which Nog still hasn't completely psycho-emotionally recovered from what happened to his leg against the Jem'Hadar and walks around with a cane at the beginning of the episode for a while. It's also the one in which Vic is telling him he has to do his taxes otherwise "Uncle Sam's going to come down on me like a ton of bricks" and Nog sympathetically replies "Sounds like my uncle."