2-2-At-2

In my last entry I touched on the issue of talking on the phone in the bathroom. In my opinion it's gross, it's tasteless, it's rude to those around you who need complete silence to do their business. But how many people are more open the idea of text on the can?

I know at least one co-worker who admits freely to texting while shitting. He does No. 2 at 2PM and goes down to the second floor bathrooms to do it. He goes there because he thinks their bathrooms are nicer. They're exactly the same. It's referred to at work as the 2-2-at-2. And he texts coworkers when he does it saying, "Guess where I am?"

A couple of days ago I'm sure I caught a covert texter who was sending a message while on the toilet. From the stall, I heard a soft clicking sound, like the kind you might here from a keypad of a cell phone. There were no beeps, just the clicking sound.

I have never sent a text message from a cell phone in my entire life. It's true. I don't use them. The reason why is an entirely different story. But texting while in the bathroom makes me think of one of my friends who dropped his cell phone in -- his own words -- "a piss-filled toilet." I never asked if he was texting while pissing, but he is a consummate texter and the more I think about it, I think that's how it went down.

"Oh no she di'n't!"

It's not often that I can talk about what goes on in the women's bathroom, except for when I'm in a Starbucks, or a gas station and I can't wait for the men's room to clear out and I have to go. Did you male readers know they get special chairs or couches to sit on when they have their cramps?

On Thursday, when I stepped out of the men's room, I saw a large black woman coming out of the door of the women's room gabbing on her cell phone coming out the door. Now she was one of those large black women who just by looking at her you can tell she doesn't take crap from nobody. Kind of like the Pinesol lady.

I don't know who she was talking to or what she was talking about, but the conservation definitely started in the can. Most likely when she was sitting on the toilet. What a lovely picture.

"Busy!"

Why wouldn't a grown man, a professional no less, lock the stall door? It's beyond me.

After two cups of coffee and two cups of water I made a dash for the small bathroom nearest my cube. It has one urinal and one stall. There was someone at the urinal so I opened the door to the stall and saw a man standing there. No more than a glimpse, I closed the door and he called out, "Busy!"

No shit? Lock the door you fool! Here you are a man in your mid forties, well dressed in business clothes and you don't know how to slide a latch on the door. Hey stupid. Close the door!

Toilet Terminology

toilet clogger
n.
1. One who consistently plugs up a toilet with each use.
2. A turd of extreme proportion that stops up the toilet and may result in an overflow.
Quick, bring towels! Jim has dropped another toilet clogger!

Mouth-Watering Rich Gravy

When did eating cans of Alpo dog food become the new physical fitness trend? Because that's what the men's bathrooms at the three different 24Hour Fitness gyms I go to smell like--wet, shitty dog food.

Have you ever taken a whiff of a can of that slop? Nothing but ears and tails floating in brown soup.

Most of the time the smell doesn't permeate the locker room. It usually stays contained to the toilet area, but not tonight. That revolting stench hit my nose the moment I set foot in the locker room.

The worst part is that the bathrooms don't have any vents to air the stink to the outside, and the management doesn't use air freshener to cover up the repugnant odor.

All I can say is that I don't think a healthy man can make that kind of smell.

Peakaboo Potty

Someone at work is a little shy about doing number 2, and it's not me. In the bathroom closest to my cube is one stall. That stall has about a one-and-a-half in gap in between the stall door and the tile wall. The stall is very close to the urinal, and while you could stand and he urinal and peer between the crack and see if someone is sitting on the pot, you'd have to be very intent on catching a peek. But this someone is so shy that they've taken to tearing off a long strip of toilet paper and hanging down the entire length of the gap.

One of these days..."Peakaboo! I see you!"

Massage 'N Go

I had the first massage of my life over the weekend. An hour's worth of rubbing for for $49, not including tip. Not bad. It left with a nice afterglow I wasn't expecting. I thought my muscles would feel looser, and while they did, I really felt great. The massage therapist told me to drink lots of water, and afterwards I had a glass. But let's just say the output did not equal the input. I had to pee, and pee and pee a lot! Sometimes a lot within just five minutes of my last trip.

Those who've never had a massage be warned, you might be like those commercials, "Gotta go. Gotta go, Gotta go right now! Gotta go. Gotta go. Gotta go."

Inverted Plunger

Have you ever seen an inverted toilet plunger? I have. In fact, there's one sitting in the restroom of my work, and it has been sitting there for weeks now.

I first noticed it a few weeks back. I headed into the main bathroom to take a dump one afternoon. Just before I sat down, I saw the toilet plunger sitting next to the crapper, with foul, shit-filled water sitting inside the inverted plunger cup.

It's something that happens when you put enough force on the plunger while using it to get it to turn inside out. But clearly someone didn't care about righting it. So they left it with shitty water sitting in it.

The plunger has sat there for several weeks now. The water has dried up, but a crusty residue remains.

Toilet Terminology

full house
n.
the state when all the stalls and urinals of a restroom are occupied.

Here's Looking at You Pee, Kid!

Friday my friend invited me to see Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe at the Northpark Theater in San Diego. Of all things poopie, this would be it. We left after the first act. It was cute but just didn't hold our interest.

At any rate, my bladder was going to burst at intermission. I made a mad dash for the bathroom, knocking a few old men out of the way in the process. I judged that they had enlarged prostates and, should they reach the urinal before me, my discomfort would only be prolonged.

I'm not prone to shy bladder, although, when I'm standing at a urinal that is in the line of sight with the bathroom door, I do have some trouble. I don't like it when a line forms and someone stands in the doorway, holding the door open, allowing everyone to see who's on deck. If this does happen though, I have two tricks up my sleeve to let it flow. I either imagine or listen to water running to relax my bladder muscles, or I do what my friend taught me. He stares at the tiles on the wall and ponders who the workmen were that laid those tiles. It clears his mind so he can go.

Anyway, I stepped up to the pisser and, as luck would have it, it was an exposed urinal. But what made my urethra clench to a trickle was a plaque hanging above the urinal. It read, "Here's looking at you, kid." The quote was attributed to someone having nothing to do with the film Casablanca, and as much as I try now to remember who was quoted, I can't. I think the name was Howard Koehl. His business name was there too, but I forget the name. Whoever this Howard is, he must have been someone who donated money to the theater, but not enough money to have his plaques appear in the theater lobby.

Whoever is in charge of the facilities at this theater sure wasn't thinking when he screwed these plaques onto the wall. The last place you want to read the phrase, "Here's looking at you, kid," is while you're trying to squeeze out a few drops.

The next time I go to that theater with a woman, I must remember to ask her if there are any clever quotes on the back of the stall doors in the ladies' restroom. Perhaps something from Martha Raye: "Take it from the big mouth. Get stains clean, even in between!"

Arctic Chill

The restroom at work today was like taking a trek across the frozen Tundra. The air conditioner was set to meatlocker cold. That combined with the management removing the warm water from the tap makes for a very chilly pee break.

On the floor I work at there are two bathrooms; a large one near the elevator, and a second one further away. I like to mix it up when I use the john. I don't like people to know my business when I'm doing my business. First, I hit the main head today (Not the one with the freezing air conditioner), and one of my co-workers, whom I don't see that often anywhere in the building was in the main bathroom. And out of the three urinals he could have chosen to use, which did he use? The middle one! He broke the cardinal rule of even spacing at the urinal. Whenever possible, you start at the end of the line to leave a buffer zone. What kind of freak is he?

I'll tell you what kind of freak he is. When I got to the sink to wash my hands, I noticed he used a paper towel to touch the soap pump so he didn't have to touch it. That's questionable. If there were any germs on the soap pump, you'd quickly wash them away with the soap! And our faucets are automatic, so he didn't have to touch the faucet handels. Can we say Howard Hughes paranoid?

Royal Flush

At my work we have automatic flushing toilets. The sensors are tripped when someone stands up or moves away from the pot. There are also manual buttons to flush the toilet in case the sensors don't work. A real class act all the way.

But what's not so classy is when the automatic flush doesn't work, and some inconsiderate employee couldn't be bothered to flush their own crap. It's amazing how some people could be in too much of a hurry or be too absent minded to not realize their turd, along with toilet paper and sanitary seat cover are now fermenting in the bowl and is on display for everyone else to see. But that was the case today. I found a nice messy turd waiting for me when I stepped into the stall to do my morning constitutional.

So, what's wrong with you people? Are you lazy? Or is it that you're absent minded? I could understand if you are blind and deaf and can't see that your turd is still sitting in the bowl, or couldn't hear that it didn't get flushed away. Are you Helen Keller? That's it, you're Helen Keller aren't you? You learned how to sign water, then you popped a squat in the men's room before I came in.

And speaking of Helen Keller, do you remember this little schoolyard potty humor gem?
Q: How did Helen Keller's parents punish her?
A: They stuck a plunger in the toilet.
Think about it...Yeah. She's blind and she'll sit right down on the handle. That'll teach her.

Back to my story. So I had to flush someone else's poop down the toilet. And it wasn't like the button wasn't working. It worked. In fact, it took two flushes to clear the bowl because of heavy skid marks.

Moral of the story, flush your own turd, otherwise your coworker will write about it on the Internet.

Flushed with Excitement

As a brief introduction about myself and this blog, I am the foremost expert in the area of pooping and peeing I know. For more than 30 years I have been doing my doodie, going No. 1 and No. 2, pinching loafs and seeing men about horses -- although not every day mind you.

From ages 25 to 30 I did not have a bowel movement. I call this my red period. No, it wasn't an ancient Yogi technique to slow down the metabolism. I have self-diagnosed Irritable Bowel Syndrome-C. IBS with constipation.

While that is a large part of who I am, this blog is intended to exhibit more than my sluggish bowels. It is to showcase the crazy, wacked-out thoughts that cross my mind while in the bathroom or deal with potty time in some way.

But why the name The Handicapped Stall you ask? Because we all know that the handicapped stall in any bathroom is the cadillac of commodes. As I've always said since I was young, "You could do a cartwheel in those things with plenty of room to spare."

Now, sit back and read it and wipe!