A Bathroom Full of Bundies
I have discovered that the workplace bathroom is a bubble universe. The loose unacknowledged consensus of perception and social order that defines our current non-bathroom universe simply does not exist in the public toilet.
I should probably clarify that I'm talking about the male version. I have no experience to comment on female bathrooms.
Anyway, here's why people are different in the John Stables:
In the western culture I am familiar with, there is no forum for social interaction whilst purging waste. There are the occasional chatters-at-the-urinal, but they are clearly freaks. So we live these parts of our lives in solitude. The public bathroom thrusts us into a bizarre quasi-communal environment with no real contextual social rules, and no real way to learn them. Obvious things that creep into the realm of common human decency, like, say, smearing feces on the stall walls, are hopefully understood. But the frequency with which I have encountered pools of urine on the floor and coating the toilet seat in workplace bathrooms is frightening and indicative of how lawless this outhouse universe is.
Not all signs of social asynchronicity are this obvious, though. I, personally, prefer a grunt-free environment. Others, apparently, have no sense of noise pollution. Also, and I suppose I shouldn't care (and wish I didn't notice), but I feel that people should wipe after defecating. And more than just once. I know that how clean an exit your waste has varies, but By All The Saints in Heaven, can you really get away without wiping? Yugh.
Moreover, I would prefer not to hear or feel the vibrations of the wiping in a neighboring stall. More than once I have been assaulted by the shockwaves of excessively vigorous wiping. Even if you weren't just smearing the crap around, it sure sounds like it would hurt. Again, yugh.
And of course there is the Legion of The Fetid Hand. Those that opt to sally forth from the stall and urinal back to their desks with nary a rinse.
I have seen with my own eyes a vigorous wiper leave his stall, approach the sink, remove a comb from a pocket, moisten said comb (but not the hand holding it), refresh his 'do, and walk out.
The horror. The horror.
And so I am led to believe these people are sociopaths. I'm no alienist, but I would say sociopathy is basically the inability to integrate external moral and ethical structures into one's psyche. Since there isn't a socially communicated ethical code about public bathroom behavior, what is acceptable is determined by internalized concepts of right and wrong. If those don't exist, as it appears they often don't, civilization collapses. Chaos then reigns in the loo, and the next thing you know you're playing fecal baseball and bowl-bathing.
I should probably clarify that I'm talking about the male version. I have no experience to comment on female bathrooms.
Anyway, here's why people are different in the John Stables:
In the western culture I am familiar with, there is no forum for social interaction whilst purging waste. There are the occasional chatters-at-the-urinal, but they are clearly freaks. So we live these parts of our lives in solitude. The public bathroom thrusts us into a bizarre quasi-communal environment with no real contextual social rules, and no real way to learn them. Obvious things that creep into the realm of common human decency, like, say, smearing feces on the stall walls, are hopefully understood. But the frequency with which I have encountered pools of urine on the floor and coating the toilet seat in workplace bathrooms is frightening and indicative of how lawless this outhouse universe is.
Not all signs of social asynchronicity are this obvious, though. I, personally, prefer a grunt-free environment. Others, apparently, have no sense of noise pollution. Also, and I suppose I shouldn't care (and wish I didn't notice), but I feel that people should wipe after defecating. And more than just once. I know that how clean an exit your waste has varies, but By All The Saints in Heaven, can you really get away without wiping? Yugh.
Moreover, I would prefer not to hear or feel the vibrations of the wiping in a neighboring stall. More than once I have been assaulted by the shockwaves of excessively vigorous wiping. Even if you weren't just smearing the crap around, it sure sounds like it would hurt. Again, yugh.
And of course there is the Legion of The Fetid Hand. Those that opt to sally forth from the stall and urinal back to their desks with nary a rinse.
I have seen with my own eyes a vigorous wiper leave his stall, approach the sink, remove a comb from a pocket, moisten said comb (but not the hand holding it), refresh his 'do, and walk out.
The horror. The horror.
And so I am led to believe these people are sociopaths. I'm no alienist, but I would say sociopathy is basically the inability to integrate external moral and ethical structures into one's psyche. Since there isn't a socially communicated ethical code about public bathroom behavior, what is acceptable is determined by internalized concepts of right and wrong. If those don't exist, as it appears they often don't, civilization collapses. Chaos then reigns in the loo, and the next thing you know you're playing fecal baseball and bowl-bathing.
posted by Dean at 7/20/2005 11:13:00 AM
2 Comments:
So my question is - what is meant when someone is refered to as being 'anal'. It that person a 'wiper'- 'not-wiper' or 'vigerous wiper', or is that another story?
I have never really understood the anal thing.
I risk sounding "academic" here, but screw it:
"Anal," as it is often used in popular American culture, refers to someone who is overly fastidious, clean, or obsessive-compulsive. Though you probably already know that. Its origin comes from that bearded demigod Sigmund Freud ("demi" because it's Freud, "god" because of the beard), who posited that human development goes through several stages, one of which, the second in sequence I think, is "Anal." To grossly (no pun intended) oversimplify, it is the stage at which the toddler becomes aware of its butt. Some people apparently have difficulty fully moving beyond this stage, and they are called "Anal Retentive." All this would make you think that such people would be obsessed with their butts and fecal matter in general, but apparently the adult mind magically translates this fixation into a tendency toward orderliness and rule-obsession.
All this being said, in the context of the sociopathic bathroom, I would imagine "anal" people to be standard wipers, probably not vigorous. Though you never can tell. People are nuts.
Thanks for the comment, anonymous. I love your poetry. Keep it up.
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