The Bathroom Is A Quiet Place
This week I was in St. Louis on business, and on Thursday, I flew thru Atlanta, as is almost always the case when I travel. The old joke about dying in the South and connecting in Atlanta before your trip to Heaven or Hell is sadly all too true. But I digress.
During my layover I had a little time to kill, so I had a beer and chatted up some folks at the pub in the concourse. On the way to the plane I had to make a pit stop, so I chose a stall and locked myself in.
I had been there for just a brief bit when some jackass in the stall beside me starts talking on his cell phone. And I don’t mean a little quiet, reserved, embarrassed “I’m in the toilet, let me call you back” conversation. I mean a full out conversation like he was on his back porch with a beer in hand talking to an old friend who had just come back from the war. Big buddies, they were, and he was talking energetically. IN. THE. BATHROOM! With washing and flushing and, well, other things going on the whole time.
I understand the cell phone is ubiquitous these days and you can never afford to be very far away from your work or contacts or friends, but DAMN, dude! Take a shit in private will ya??? Or at the least, let me!
So, as I sat there alternately annoyed and amused by this new boorish friend of mine (who, by the way, had met a hot girl in Boston on his business trip who was, to quote his words, “Bangin”) I was pondering how to shut the guy up and make the point that the bathroom is a quiet place without getting in a full on confrontation with my pants down…
So I just started talking loudly too. I reacted to his conversation like *I* was the person on the other end of the phone. REALLY? She was HOT dude? Sweet! Did you get her number? Then what? I conversed with him loudly and breathlessly for a few moments until….
Wait for it…
He said (to his actual phone buddy) “Let me call you back dude, some idiot in the stall next to me is talking on his phone so loud I can’t hear you.”
And then there was silence. Sweet, blessed silence. 
I win. Yay me.
(flush)
Airline ticket to STL – $245
Two beers in an airport pub – $10
Outsmarting a loudmouth and having a quiet bathroom – priceless
Ehhhhhhhhhhxcellent.
Hahahah nicely done. At least he was talking to an old buddy. I once was in a Barnes and Nobles stall when some salesman dude comes walking in talking loudly on his headpiece, apparently to a client(!), heads for the stall, does his business — still yelling into the mic — commits a two-flusher(!), washes up, strides out of the bathroom and out of the store still yammering away.
Aside from the natural bridling at this kind of person’s obvious boorishness, I’ve figured out why public cell phone use in general makes me so annoyed. It’s because when I hear cell phone users holding loud, one-sided conversations in public places, there’s an ancient part of my brain that automatically responds as though I’m in the presence of a crazy person who’s talking to the voices in his head. My poor caveman brain stem can’t tell the difference between living in the modern communication age, and being surrounded on all sides by raving lunatics. This is why we hate hearing someone on the phone in the nice restaurant where we’re eating. How can we feel like we’re getting a good restaurant experience when the place is obviously infested by the insane?
OMG
It’s almost midnight and I think I just woke up the whole house laughing.
Now, I have to admit… I have been in a bathroom on the phone. but always with a headset (hands-free) and ALWAYS with the mute on… except for that one time… in Atlanta…
Midnight-twenty, and I just found this!
Good thing my bed buddy (who’s also in my computer room for a couple nights…but that’s another story) isn’t easily awakened, ’cause of my lol over this, too.
THANK GOD I’m not the only one who thinks real live people disappeared into some sort of walking, talking, eating, “releasing”, robots! Ah for the days when a person wasn’t talking on cell phone or texting…and actually acknowledged other human beings.
Dream on……maybe I’ll meet up with other souls in Atlanta when my time comes to travel to Heaven (assuming Hell’s not where I’m headed!) and we CAN’T TAKE IT WITH US….not even cellphones! Woo HOO!!! We might actually feel ALIVE again, and carry on neat interpersonal conversations.