Toiletiquette

Did you know that stepping across the threshold of the jacks at work is like stepping into a different world?

Being in the toilet when a work colleague walks in is highly embarrassing. It doesn't matter if it's your best mate, someone you don't like or a person you've just been speaking to outside for 20 minutes. You think, damn! there's someone here and I hate this because I don't know what to say to another bloke when I'm holding my own penis. Or even if I should say anything. So, we sigh deeply, puff our cheeks distractedly, hum, or stare at a spot on the wall above the urinal and secretly wish it was all over so we can zip up and escape. Or, if we do talk (to cover up the heavily pregnant silence), it's nearly worse than staying quiet because it's a strained conversation full of forced laughter and is generally about the first dull topic that springs to mind. Like the weather. Or were you out at the weekend. Or the football results. Or sex life of oompah loompahs.

It's all understandable I suppose. We're there to carry out functions that involve our willies, arseholes and unpleasant smells and noises. It's therefore something we'd rather do alone and without social interaction. Think about it. You're on the bog and someone knocks on the door and says "anyone in there?" How simply excruciating it is to even have to speak one line and say "er, yeah, me." It's just horrible. It's not like the unisex kharzees on Ally McBeal at all.

This is where the stalls offer sanctuary though. If there's someone at the urinals you can always give them the slip and duck into the good old stalls. Unless there's someone in the stall next to it of course; like, how off-putting is it to be in a stall when the person next to you is birthing a brown one and grunting like they're pushing a cartload of turnips up a steep hill? I tell you, going to the jacks at work is to be dreaded and feared and don't even get me started on the times people forgot to lock the door and were stumbled upon with their pants down. It's hard to laugh it off when someone's looking at you taking a shit, there's no two ways about it.

There's also the times when you try to stay quiet in the stalls and hope the others outside don't know you're there, but if they linger then you're forced into trying to delicately complete manoeuvres in a gentlemanly way so folk don't think you're a total minger with an arse that would peel paint off a wall. Attempting this is a tense affair. All too often you relax just a bit too much and suddenly the quiet is pierced by a sharp stealth fart that's out and running around waving a big flag before you even knew it was there. Rumbled. The old 'warning sniff' or 'caution cough' is the best course of action at all times. Everyone knows where they stand then.

Then there are those blessed grown-up days when, possessed by insight, you think to yourself that this messing about is all very stupid and illogical and you should just stand at the feckin' urinal next to someone and take a piss for Jaysus' sake. However, on these days you can be almost certain that the other guy will play the part of the embarrassed one and so any effort you might make at being breezy and normal falls flat on its face.

And if someone rings your mobile when you're in the jacks, are you supposed to answer it or what?

I dunno. Personally, I'm not helped by this one slightly creepy guy at work who always seems to be in the jacks when I go in. At the same urinal every time, standing in a slouch, languidly drying his willie. It's very disturbing in itself, as if I didn't have enough to contend with what with being a man and everything.