Strange Tidings from the Woman's Bathroom

It is not often bizarre for me to have the trust and confidence of women over their bathroom escapades. Perhaps this is my non-threatening, asexual nature, or my love of good/bawdy humor, or maybe it's just the fact that I have a propensity to wander around, and these are stories that need be told.

Stories that have been told to me in the past:

• The hygenical means and non-dietary uses of baking soda
  
• What really happens with soiled feminine napkins
  
• Women's secret fears of others knowing that they are pooping, and how they will go so far as to catch stools in attempts to avoid a splash

While walking back into the office this afternoon I bumped into Katie, the new BMC intern, that quickly sped by me with her arms folded.

"Are you cold?" I asked, more out of politeness and as a rhetorical question-- the temperature here continues to hover around negative ten with a windchill approaching death.

She unfolded her arms and came back to me, speaking in a hushed whisper loud enough for everybody to hear. She spoke, "No, I didn't want you to shake my hand. I just went to the bathroom, and -- I don't know who it is -- but that was the worst smell I've ever come across."

"Like farting?"

"Yes!"

"Hangover or Fast Food?"

"It was like something that I've never come across before. It was a combination of both of those along with a third element. Maybe a condom fart?"

My Adam's apple bobbed to force the vomit back down. I attempted to lighten up/end the conversation, "Maybe you should go grab one of the respirators, go back in there so you can, you know, finish tidying up?"

She looked around her before commencing, "I think some of it seeped into my clothes."

I edged away.

Now there are strange things we come across in the human experience, the Freak Show complex being one of the most subtle and hardest to ignore. It's a simple thought process that bores into the brain where nasty, disgusting and often embarrassing things enamel themselves to the core of our being and makes it so that we need to blow somebody else's candle out so ours shines that much brighter.

And so, as I wandered into a break room to buy her a can of V8 (honestly, this was not for the potential humor that was involved with it, it's because I couldn't get my hands on the gasoline that we keep locked up here, and the fact she needed to douse herself in something.) I heard the door to the woman's bathroom open, and I paused.

I knew that I could go into the break room, hide myself there so that I wouldn't be able to see the shame of the person that emerged from their den of filth. I could even, maybe, crack the door open or stand there long enough so a sideways glance could be thrown, and I could see who the perpetrator of the nastiness was.

Or I could just turn around, jaw agape and let my basic, stupid instincts take over.

Which I did.

There are several happy poop dances. As alluded to in previous articles, I grew up raised by and large by dogs. Having said that I consider myself to be a bit of an officianado when it comes to the delicate footwork that comes with such glee.

And there, dancing in front of me was Ellen, my employer. Strutting her stuff while careening through the air. She caught sight of me mid pirouette and came to a stop, adjusted her pantsuit (which in a disgusting moment I found myself contemplating: had touched the bathroom floor) and walked back down the hall to her large office.

In this day and age it is difficult to come across such joy as the poop dance, or the reward of having accomplished or made something with you day. It is high time that we all cut the poop dancers some slack and let them have fun they so richly deserved.

To White Castle and then the Bar!!