Potty Talk

My husband and I went out to dinner last night with some former coworkers from the Company That Sucked. We had a lot of fun reliving the bad old days and catching up on our lives since leaving the shroud of that godawful place. One thing I noticed as the evening progressed is that the men's stories frequently involved the men's room. My conclusion, admittedly based on just this anecdotal evidence, is that men are just overgrown boys and the potty obsession my boys exhibit at 5 and 3 never really goes away.

The potty stories included:

The multi-wiper: My husband's contribution. The other day, he went into the bathroom and there was someone in one of the stalls. As my husband did his business and washed his hands, he heard the stall occupant pull paper, pause, pull paper, pause, pull paper, pause...so many times that my husband began to count. He counted to seventeen before the man flushed and my husband fled the scene. This event caused my husband to speculate about the pain and possible blood factor involved in such excessive wiping. Ladies, I ask you - have you ever been moved to count your neighbor's wipes? Or speculate on the resultant state of their nether regions?

The lock-in: Our friend's memory. One time, he arrived at the Evil Company of Doom earlier than everyone else on the floor and had an urgent bathroom need. He knew the door handle to the men's room was broken, but he thought it was just broken from the outside, and so great was his need that he decided to risk it. On his way back out of the bathroom, he reached for the door handle and it came off in his hand, locking him into the bathroom. He heard someone get off the elevator and began pounding on the bathroom door, "in a random pattern, to distinguish [his] pounding from the construction noise next door," but the offending coworker ignored it and our friend was trapped for about 30 minutes before a more observant party released him. Again, ladies - would you a) lock yourself in a bathroom with an obviously broken handle in the first place, b) give so much thought to how you pounded for help once trapped, or c) harbor resentment for years against the person who didn't realize you were locked in?

The struggle: Another contribution by our male friend. He likened this event to the disturbing bathroom scene from Austin Powers. During a recent work bathroom visit, he heard a coworker having a difficult time in a bathroom stall. Movement of the seat was involved, as was grunting and straining. Our friend acted it out in a much more entertaining fashion than I can reproduce with the written word alone. And yet again, for my female friends - if you heard someone struggling in the bathroom, wouldn't you just leave???

An oldie but a goodie: No gathering of coworkers from the Company of Pain is complete until all of the men reenact the urinating difficulties of one of our former coworkers (not present at the gathering, naturally). This afflicted man apparently used to pee in spurts, as if his equipment were a defective sink faucet. Again, the acting out of this poor man's troubles was a lot funnier than this recap, but you get the point. The men can get apoplectic with laughter at this memory.

And so, when my 3 year old contemplates his own bathroom productions and deems them "like a snake," at least I know he is right on track for manhood. And I can give up hope now that the potty talk is just a phase that will someday pass.