Scat Chat

PUBLIC POOP
Does anyone else do this?

It used to be that I would not sit on a public toilet seat, since my mother had instilled in me the mortal fear of picking up unspecified germs from flesh to seat contact. God only knows what you would come home with. Probably tuberculosis. At least that's how my mom made it sound. Later on, as an adult, I read reports that the average public toilet is actually cleaner than your desk. Public toilets get regularly disinfected - sometimes as much as every 15 minutes. You can see this in some public toilets where they keep a record posted on the back of the main door that the maintenance person has to sign when they've completed their duties. It can see a little obsessive. Every 15 minutes? What could happen in 15 minutes that could cause such significant damage? On the other hand, better not to ask, but just be secure in the knowledge that you are discharging waste into a sterile receptacle that, statistically speaking, is safer to lick than the desk you normally park your sandwich on.

So it's not my fear of germs and infection that keeps me hovering over the toilet seat these days. Part of it is the built in knee jerk response to all those years of training, sure. But if I'm feeling particularly lazy, I'll have a rest. What keeps me squatting these days is pure vanity. In the manner of those horrible women's magazines that encourage you to keep fit and exercise even if you don't have time to go to the gym - "You always have time for a work out. Why not do squats for five minutes while you're waiting for the coffee to perk?" - I actually hover because I consider it an opportunity to get a little quad workout. Seriously. Sometimes I hover just a bit longer so that I can really feel the burn. It's absurd to think that it is really doing anything, but I suppose I also have it locked into my brain that, "every little bit helps." That putting on my socks by extending my leg straight out in front of me while I'm standing counts as a gentle "head to knee" yoga stretch in the morning; that balancing on one leg while the other is raised in order to tie my shoelaces instead of just crouching; that these activities will somehow counter the severe bloating effects of last night's Chinese food take out and ice cream sundae binge (the cruel brainchild of my boyfriend who still has the metabolism of a 19 year old basketball player). Nonetheless, "every little bit helps." And yes, if I happen to be wearing high heels while I am crounching over the public toilet, that counts as a "calf stretch."

As if this isn't bad enough, as if this doesn't seal my reputation for impotent vanity, if I am unlucky enough to be possessed of an urgent need to not only pass water but in fact to void my bowels, there is the extra challenge of the cubicle. For whatever reason, I have accepted the fact that we all, as human beings, have a need to relieve our bladders. This is self-evident. Apparently I do not hold the same views toward bowel voidance. It seems I truly believe that this is only performed by people who generally behave in poor taste, as in, "a laaaady doesn't poo!" However, sometimes this lady does have to poo. And if I am in a public toilet and the rest of the washroom is unoccupied I feel the heart pounding pressure to make sure my task is completed before someone else enters the suite. However, on those occassions when that is impossible to arrange; when the primal need is more urgent than the ability to wait for the crowd to clear; when someone is in the stall RIGHT NEXT DOOR and is sure to overhear my actions and KNOW that I are not truly a laaaady but some uneducated and unlucky boor; on those occasions while I am HOVERING on my tippy toes flexing my quads and desperately holding it in; then I hang on for the perfect time. Sometime after I hear my neighbour pulling paper off the roll and the shuffling sounds of clothes being re-arranged I will hear my cue. My golden opportunity comes when my neighbour finally flushes. The bay doors open, as it were, and I drop my cargo, the sound of water contact mercifully camoflaged by the swirling waterfall next door. With any luck at all, I can get it all in one go.

On occasions when the person in the washroom is hovering too long at the sink, I just pray that my fibre intake has been more than adequate that day so that the proceeding drop makes smooth and silent contact like an Olympic diver entering the water; like a nuclear submarine descending to avoid enemy discovery. On a good day, it's "Grey Lady Down." On a bad day, however, it's more like "Cannonball Run." Enough said.

This self-consciousness, I wonder, is this primarily a female phenomenon? Do men ever worry about how other might perceive the plop? I doubt it, since men only use the stalls when they need to do a No.2. There would be no mystery as to why you were in there.

I suppose that's why I try to disguise the sound. To preserve the "mystery." What am I doing in there? Just having a run of the mill everyday pee? Or checking text messages from the CIA on my cel phone? Who knows? It's a MYSTERY.

We all have to preserve a sense of mystery in order to feel, you know, important. No point in letting everyone in on all my secrets. Must preserve the illusion of shit-lessness. After all, I am a laaaady.

- Falcon