Before you say something, it DOES seem like I write about shit a lot. Actually, I do write about #2 every once in a while, but it’s only because there is so much to say that hasn’t yet been said.

I have an old friend, Jon (named changed to protect him), who was in the army. Once he was honored to be able to attend a State dinner where, dressed in his full dress uniform, accompanied by a lovely date, he ate and drank and danced with dignitaries, ambassadors, politicians, and generals. After dinner that evening, he was forced to sneak off to the bathroom for #2. According to him, things went well, and he was happy that his bathroom break might go unnoticed. That is, until he wiped. As all men will tell you, we fold, not crumple or ball, the toilet paper, and we wipe, from behind, front to back. It’s the only way. Jon accidentally caught his pale green shirt tail in the toilet paper on its way to his ass. And yes, he wiped, a full-on, first-wipe, wipe with his shirt instead of the TP. As you might imagine, it was not a pretty scene.

From that day on, Jon refuses to go to the bathroom in a shirt. He takes off his shirt and hangs it on a doorknob or hook every single time. Since hearing the story, I have been obsessed with NOT doing the same thing. I am very careful. Very. It has been 5 years.

Shitting at work is a complicated endeavor. In my office, on my floor, there are three options:

1. The preferred option: Just hold it until you get home.

2. There is a single occupancy bathroom, I assume for handicapped employees (of which we have none) that offers great close-proximity privacy, but is uncomfortably close to surrounding offices and cubicles. From inside this bathroom, one can clearly hear conversations in these offices, and therefore, the assumption is any nasty bathroom noises would easily be heard in those same offices.

3. There is a poorly designed multi-stalled facility down the hall, where the two urinals are too close to the two sinks, and four stalls which, until very recently, had doors that opened the wrong way. The wrong-way doors, now fixed, used to open in to tiny stalls without room to close them. One had to slide sideways between the wall and toilet in order to clear the door radius and allow it to close. Complicating matters is the water pressure, which unlike every where else in the building is unnecessarily strong, turning simple toilets, in the hands of the inexperienced, into pant-ruining feces cannons, which flush with such centripetal force they launch tiny bits of shit out in all directions. Adding to the poor ergonomics it the simple fact that the sinks are sandwiched between the exit and the urinals (which are way too close and exposed) and the paper towels are on the opposite wall. This means that if someone is at the urinal while you are washing your hands, your are forced to be uncomfortable close to his exposed penis, and in order to dry your hands you have to squeeze past him between the urinal and the stalls. It sucks.

During emergencies, deciding between options 2 and 3 is a complicated matter. On one hand, you run the risk of noisily embarrassing yourself to coworkers trying to work. On the other hand, you run the risk of sitting next to a noisy co-worker, bumping into someone at the urinal, or having shit sprayed across your legs.

The typical strategy is to poke your head into the multi-stall bathroom and check for other occupants. If clear, you move in and go as quickly as possible. If occupied, you either come back later, or try out the single occupant restroom. You NEVER use the restroom for #2 if it is already occupied by someone. Never.

Today, unfortunately, I had to go. As planned, I checked the multi-stall bathroom, and it was empty, so I moved in. The freedom of the emptiness allowed me to take my time and plan wisely. I entered the largest of the four stalls, the one set up to accept the handicapped. It isn’t as large as you might expect. There is no room for a wheelchair or anything like that, just a little bit more room than the others. I proceeded to use wadded up sheets of toilet paper to wipe the seat down thoroughly. I unbuckled my belt and pants and pulled them down around my ankles. Then, as I always do, I paid careful attention to my shirt, which was a long-ish button-down, and therefore susceptible to accident. I leaned forward slightly and pulled the shirt up around my waist, carefully, deliberately. I finally leaned forward to aim myself and squat down in the right position on the seat. Unfortunately I forgot myself, miscalculated, and accidentally headbutted the closed door, hard. The noise was horrendous. All the stalls shook with the shock, and my door flung wide open. An there I was, half squatted, pants around my ankles, shirt pulled up around my waist, and the door wide open, well past my reach. I chuckled to myself in between grimacing from the pain, and I shuffled out to grab the door. I expected Lester Wunderman to walk in that very moment, and, frankly, I’d love to tell you that he did. But he didn’t. I successfully retrieved the door, and sat without further incident.

There is more though. I work for a very respectable advertising agency. We are all adults. Many people have been there for decades. You would expect that the men have learned not to act like animals. They haven’t.

As I sat there, staring at the stall door, looking around for something to hold my attention, I noticed a dried snot stuck to the wall. Then another. And another. I counted no less than 14 individual dries snots stuck to the wall. Unfucking believable! There is fucking toilet paper right there! We have all picked a nose or two on the toilet. I understand the picking part! It’s the fucking wall-wipe that I just don’t get.

When I was finally finished, even after all the events that had transpired, I remembered the shit-cannon water pressure. I pulled my usual stunt. I treat 17th floor toilet flushing just like grenade throwing. I get fully dressed, belt and all. I unlock, but do not open the stall door. I reach my left foot over to the toilet handle and I prepare myself. I pull the old “”flush-n-jump”. Flush with one foot, jump out with the other. I checked my pants – no shit bits! Another successful workplace crap…

For more on shit, you might want to read about the times I shit my pants, or maybe the rules that Mike posted a while back about how to shit at work.