I usually leave around mid-day to pick up some fruit to accompany my lunch. On this day, I bought a banana and kept it in my pocket on the way back. Har har har, a timeless, tacky joke wrought true, I thought.
When I returned to the office I dropped by the bathroom. Let me just say that, regardless, public bathrooms are wormholes to social purgatory. Anything that happens in the real world becomes acutely awkward when you enter a multi-user restroom - like talking. Is talking to someone okay in there? Maybe? BUT IT'S SO AWKWARD. I've used a cell phone in a bathroom before. They are not good places for phone use.
Anyways, though this time of day is usually slow in the bathroom, a couple guys came in right after me.
Without even thinking, I panicked, trying to cover up the banana hanging out of my pocket in the men's bathroom. I felt as if I'd crossed some line of manly trust.
fig. a: the volatile social dynamics of public restrooms
I can't really think of a specific taboo that I've broken, yet I still feel like I've sunk into murky Larry Craig territory. Are bathrooms off-limits for bananas? I'd have felt worse if there were a cucumber in my pocket, I guess, but that's not much consolation.
Why are bathrooms SO AWKWARD??? Blurg.
i'm so glad you did a posting on this. office bathrooms are so much worse than random public bathrooms because you see those people again -they aren't just strangers.... it is the most awkward place in the world. We have toilet seat covers in my bathroom - the tissue kind -but you have to tear one off the wall before you go into a stall... - I don't believe in toilet seat covers, because I don't work with homeless people and I trust that the other ladies' thighs are relatively clean, and I get mildly offended when people do take the toilet seat cover.. its like saying "I don't trust my coworkers to have un-diseased backsides" really? But then, maybe, those people get upset that I don't use the toilet seat cover - and that I'm some sort of heathen... man. why do they add other layer of awkward. don't get me started on the whole papertowel on the door handle thing.
ReplyDeleteoffice bathrooms...you nailed it.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Shaving in the office bathroom? Ever okay? I vote no, but at least two d-bags I work with feel differently.
ReplyDeleteAlso: I am apparently commenting on your blog now. I like it! (Commenting, and, the blog.)