I realized two interesting things today regarding the bathroom (and I have a third point with which I’ll need your help).
1. I use the handicap stalls at work whenever possible. I feel guilty about doing this, but they’re so roomy and usually cleaner than the other stalls. I justify my selfish actions by simply reminding myself that I’ve never seen a handicapped person come into the bathroom the same time I’m in there. There are many holes in my justification, but it’s worked so far. (Side note, I never take handicapped parking spaces. I draw the line with bodily functions…not vehicular conveniences.)
2. Our company employs blind and severely-sight-impaired (not quite blind, but almost) people to operate the PBX system. They are extremely self sufficient. Some do not even use canes while walking around the building. They subtly drag a finger along the wall or memorize the steps to the elevator or conference rooms. This impressed me. However, the most amazing display of self sufficiency is their ability to pee with near laser-like precision. They hit their mark with never a drop hitting the tiled bathroom floor. Hell, I’m not even that accurate and I have 20/20 vision. I discovered this while peeing one day when one of the PBX operators walked in the bathroom and made a near perfect pivot in front of the urinal next to me. He unzipped and began peeing. I looked down at the tile under his feet to see if he was missing. Nope, the floor was completely dry. Kudos to you, sir. I am impressed. I assumed blind men always peed sitting down because of the accuracy issues.
I made some idle chit-chat about the recent building evacuation (due to a burnt popcorn catastrophe in the kitchenette on our floor). I’m one of the “fire wardens” for our floor, which means I am tasked with making sure all of the blind or disabled folks on our floor make it out of the building without harm in the event of an evacuation. (No, I do not wear a red fire hat.) As I walked back to my desk I pondered how difficult it would be for me to pee if I lost my sight. By the time I reached my desk I convinced myself it would be easier to go with diapers than heightening my senses like a comicbook superhero just to pee standing up.
3. Justine and I were leaving one of our favorite local chinese restaurants here in Houston recently when she turned to visit the restroom before we left. I told her that I had to go also, but since we were headed to Target to run some errands we would actually end up driving right past our apartment. I said I would stop by our apartment to use the bathroom since I don’t really like using public bathrooms if I don’t have to. Justine was stunned. So much, in fact, that she actually never made it to the bathroom in the Chinese restaurant. She berated me in the car for the 2 mile drive back to our apartment and then again for the next 2 miles to Target for not wanting to use the public bathroom. The crazy part of this argument was that we were literally driving right past our apartment to get to Target, so it wasn’t like we were driving out of our way for me to use my own bathroom. You see, I thought my oh-so-subtle code of “I’d rather go to the bathroom back at the apartment” would be easily recognizable as “oh, Dave must need to take a horrendous shit and doesn’t want to do that in a public place.” This was not the case. She was stupefied by my decision to drop the bomb at home instead of the Chinese restaurant.
So I ask you, gentle blog reader, help me end this argument by casting your vote below:
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