D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
January 2010
Potty Mouths
Here's a suggestion for people who insist on talking — or singing! — in public restrooms: Zip it!
To boost my self-esteem, I like to make New Year's resolutions that are easy to keep. Not for me are those resolutions foredoomed to failure, like well-intentioned but hopeless vows to lose weight, exercise daily or be kinder to one's fellow man. (As if those ingrates would appreciate it, anyway!) No, I like to bet on a sure thing, self-improvement-wise, sort of like picking Peyton Manning as your fantasy-football quarterback.
That's why this year I'm resolving not to talk unnecessarily in public restrooms.
Now, you may think such a resolution is pointless, even bizarre. But my recent experience on the road in southwest New Mexico and southern Arizona persuades me otherwise. Indeed, although I've voluntarily adopted such a vow, I'm inclined to think the epidemic of restroom talking — under which I include, yes, restroom singing (more on which momentarily) — may require legislative action. I'd urge the state legislature and Gov. Richardson to take a break from trying to dig out of the gigantic hole their profligacy has dug over the past seven years and address this far more crucial challenge. We need a restroom-talking (and, of course, singing) ban and we need it now!
I confess that my experience with restroom chattiness is perforce limited to public men's rooms. So perhaps this is a strictly male problem. I've asked my wife whether inappropriate talking/singing is a problem infesting women's restrooms as well, but she just looks at me funny and begins thumbing through the Yellow Pages for divorce lawyers and psychiatrists.
It may be that talkiness, to coin a phrase, is especially a problem in men's restrooms because — how can I put this delicately? — some of the business conducted therein is done standing up, separated from one's fellow man by a narrow barrier if at all. Indeed, certain sports-stadium men's rooms offer little more than, well, a trough. Restroom stalls enforce a certain privacy and civility that, one would hope, discourages casual chatter. "How ya doin' over there?" seems like entirely unnecessary banter when one's would-be conversation partner can be glimpsed only in the form of ankles and feet.
Guys know what I'm talking about here. Proper men's room etiquette requires that upon entering what we'll call the "stand-up" area, you navigate to the spot that puts the maximum possible distance between you and any other customers. In more crowded conditions, if there is any way to put at least one space between you and another guy, etiquette demands that you do so. Deliberately opting to stand next to another guy when any other, less-creepy choice is available violates a sacred social taboo.
Therefore, to say the least, talking to a fellow stand-up patron while you are both unzipped goes far beyond the pale. No subject, not even the hallowed guy ground of sports, is appropriate for conversation in such circumstances. "How about them Yankees?," if uttered in the context of standing in a men's room doing one's bodily business, is socially equivalent to vomiting on another guy's shoes at a bus stop. Just get it done, zip up and move along, buddy.
Some observers less concerned about the imminent decline of Western civilization might be willing to make an exception for talking on one's cell phone in a restroom. Obviously, I'm referring here to answering an ill-timed cell phone call. If you are so demented as to initiate a cell phone call while in a public restroom, there's no hope for you.
The cell-phone issue may cut across gender lines, for the simple reason of manual dexterity. Guys who can do their business standing up while also holding a cell phone to their ear — much less simultaneously punching the keypad — are not fellas I want to be standing near. These are new shoes, if you get my drift.
In any case, my most recent encounter with cell-phone chatting in a restroom, during a recent trip to Tucson, was indeed heard and not (thank goodness) seen. Emanating — loudly, as people talking on cell phones tend to do — from the first stall was a cheery, even endearing (in other circumstances) conversation by a man with his wife. They discussed things he needed to pick up on this shopping trip, then wrapped up with, "OK, honey, love you, too."
Sweet, sure, but keep in mind that the guy had his pants around his ankles at the time.
Not having been present for the start of the call, I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and assumed she had called him. Thinking, "Hey, as long as I'm sitting down, now's a good time to check in with the little woman," is just too outr. Still, what's the right thing to do in these circumstances? Do you tell the caller that you're sitting in a bathroom stall? Would it be the end of the world to say, "Hi, honey, you caught me at a bad time. Can I call you right back?"
The slightly disconcerting weirdness of inadvertently listening to half of a cell-phone conservation coming from a restroom stall pales, however, beside my experience the previous day at Love's truck stop in Lordsburg, en route to Tucson. As I stepped up to the plate, so to speak, in the men's room, I heard singing. Loud, raspy, only slightly off-key and utterly enthusiastic singing:
"Stand up, stand up for JESUS," the man belted out. I am not making this up.
The hymn-singing soon segued seamlessly into — again, you can't make this up — a second musical selection:
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
Sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing,
Keeps me singing as I go."
Now, I have nothing but respect for devout faith, and I admire someone so filled with religious fervor that he can't help but sing out. Still, my natural Scandinavian reserve recoils just a tad at hymn-singing in a public men's room along I-10. How is the listener supposed to respond? "Amen, brother!," while perhaps appropriate in other situations, seems peculiar in this context. I pondered responding in kind, perhaps with a rousing restroom chorus of "Go Tell It on the Mountain." ("Over the hills and ev-er-y-where" — including, apparently, Love's men's room.)
The fellow kept on singing at full volume as he emerged and washed his hands (cleanliness, after all, being next to godliness) at the sink next to where I was trying to wash up and escape as rapidly as possible. He was bearded — a bit like an Old Testament prophet, perhaps — and rough-hewn looking, clad in overalls. (This I observed strictly via peripheral vision, not wanting to risk eye contact lest he abruptly decide to baptize me in the sink.)
I scurried out with only a cursory drying of my hands. Behind me, the singing went on:
"Though sometimes He leads through waters deep."
I know, I probably just need to loosen up a bit. Maybe a rousing chorus of "Proud Mary" would help pass the time on my next visit to a public restroom. Or, if my hands are, er, free, I could use the opportunity to catch up with distant friends by placing a few phone calls. (Reach out and touch someone, indeed — but please wash your hands first!)
"Hi, Bill, I was just sitting here and thought of you! How's it going?"
Maybe I could even work in a few quick phone interviews, using that handy roll of paper beside me to take notes. "Senator Bingaman, what's your stance on the president's Afghanistan exit strategy?"
From there, it's a small step to chatting up my fellow restroom patrons. After you've shared that kind of intimacy, after all, can you really still be strangers?
"Say, I really like your pants. Did you get them here at Kohl's? These are new shoes, by the way."
Guys, maybe it's time to shed our inhibitions along with our pants. Get to know your fellow human beings. Why let a bathroom stall keep us apart?
"Are you finished with the Sports section over there?"
"Anybody for a group hymn-sing?"
No, I don't think so. I'm sticking with my New Year's resolution. Unless, of course, I spot Gov. Richardson in the next stall. I've got a few ideas he really needs to hear.