potty talk

As many of you know, I’m consistently amused by the difference in how men and women approach the same thing. Take going to the restroom, for instance. At my office, the women are outnumbered by the men by at least 2-to-1.

At our happy hour last week, it somehow came up that the guys were downright giddy that someone had brought in a Ski Patrol magazine for restroom perusal. The existing literature was limited to Dell catalogs and a PC magazine, which did not encourage the apparent much-needed relaxation time on the toilet. One guy even commented that he could “now take his time since he has something interesting to read.”

I almost spewed my drink at the time in thinking of the overall honesty that men have about their pooping habits, while women not only do not talk about it in mixed company but we often deny that it we even have to do it in the first place. And when we absolutely must, it is certainly not at a public venue unless we are practically turtling. And we certainly would never consider the office toilet to be a normal alternative to taking a coffee break because it would be mortifying to get “caught” by another employee mid-act.

Not only are men comfortable with doing it and not caring who hears them, but also I’ve heard that they even ask stall neighbors to “courtesy flush” when the smell is too ripe. For women, we would NEVER do that because pretending that you didn’t hear or smell anything whatsoever is keeping to The Code. Whenever you hear that a woman is unluckily having to go #2, your obligation is to hurry up and rush out so that the other is not needlessly embarrassed by having to make eye contact with the one that heard everything.

Even on Sex and the City, the girls commented once that they knew they were pretty serious with a guy when they felt comfortable enough to go #2 at his place (forget the "I love you"). The difference is that I can’t count how many times my brother or guy friends would get up to leave my place, only to say “wait, I have to go to the bathroom,” at which time I would try to say “you can't bomb and run,” but it was always too late. I’d force the guy to spray and turn on the fan before I’d allow him to exit and then he’d have to shut the door quickly behind him. Why couldn’t they just wait until they get to their own house?

And this would be where I'm supposed to insert a witty closing quote, but I'm too tired and my computer just crashed on me (but fortunately recovered my post). Perhaps I owe it a courtesy flush, er, reboot?