Thursday, February 18, 2010

Bathroom Humor

There is a certain atmosphere that exists in public restrooms that is unlike anywhere I've ever seen. Sure, there is the nature of what goes on there; but more importantly, people change when they go into a public restroom. And not just in the "If you're American when you go in the bathroom and Asian when you come out of the bathroom, what are you when you're in the bathroom?"* sort of way.

*European!
It seems that whenever anybody enters a public restroom, they feel the need to become hyper-introverted, even if they encounter someone they know. Take a meeting between associates Tom and Bob. If they met on the street, the meeting might go as follows:
  Tom: "Bob? Is that you?"
  Bob: "Tom! As I live and breathe. How are you, old man?"
  Tom: "Oh, I'm good! And you?"
  Bob: "Great. The Mrs. and I just closed on our first house."
  Tom: "That's amazing. Way to be, my friend."
  Bob: "Yeah, we'll have to have you over for dinner sometime."

Now let's examine that same meeting, but this time they meet as Tom has just walked into a restroom as Bob is walking out.
  Tom: "...hey."
  Bob: *nods

Gone is the frivolity. Gone is the small talk. Gone is Tom's dinner invite. And why? Because of the locale of their encounter. And that's on a good day. Heaven knows had the meeting happened when there were other men in the restroom, Tom and Bob would have done all they could to avoid even making eye contact with one another. In fact, it's a good bet that had Tom and Bob been friends who were walking and talking on their way to use the facilities at the same time, their conversation would have stopped the second they stepped foot in the door.

"So two guys walk into a bath—"
I'm sure we all have funny stories of bathroom encounters. There's the instance when we hear ringing coming from the stall next to us, followed by the person answering and having an entire conversation. There's also the times when something (sink, paper towels, etc.) doesn't work, and the person who has just discovered it seems compelled to make a (often lame) joke about the situation.

"No towels? Looks like I'll just have to come up with another way to dry my hands!"
Despite the aforementioned stories—and any left in comments, for everyone's pleasure—I believe I stumbled across the mother of all restroom tales. The following conversation took place between two young boys at a recent sporting event, and was overheard by me whilst I was in a stall. For organization's sake, I'm going to give each boy a name; but other than that, everything that follows is a direct quotation, told in the manner in which it was heard:

-Tommy enters the bathroom and walks up to a urinal. He is joined shortly thereafter by Bobby.-
  Bobby: "No, you don't do it like that."
  Tommy: "Like what?"
  Bobby: "You don't pull them both down. You pull this part down without pulling this part down."
  Tommy: "Huh?"
  Bobby: "That way, people don't get to see your bum. You do it like this. Look at this."
-pause-
  Bobby: "No, don't look at THAT part!"
  Tommy: *giggles
  Bobby: "See? This is how it works. My friend does it your way, except with his underwear. I saw my friend's underwear once. But it was at church, so I didn't tell anybody."
-pause-
  Bobby: "He had SpongeBob underpants."

Tommy and Bobby, artist's depiction
And that is why those boys are the coolest kids ever.

2 comments:

Aaron Hunter said...

my favorite is how you can't even make eye contact when your pissing in the urinal. you have to look straight at the wall...you definitely don't want to get caught doing an Ace Ventura. And WTF is up with the dudes who pee for like 30 seconds and then leave the bathroom without even the thought of washing their hands...freaks me out.

Effing Frost said...

When it's potty time I pull my pants down all the way to my ankles when I hit the urinal. Nobody has ever noticed of course because they keep their eyes on their prize, so it works out for me.