Public bathrooms are a place of misery, disgust, vulnerability,
and hilarity.
I have
seen, heard, and smelled it all in the public bathrooms of our world. They make
me utterly nervous and I will sometimes avoid it at all costs depending on my
location. However, sometimes I have never ending laughs in the public
bathrooms. For example, when one partakes in flatulence while perched on the
porcelain, I will be sitting down the row in a stall trying my hardest not to
let my laughter be heard. I almost get a hernia. I come out of the stall
sweating from the hard labor of holding in my laughter that people give me strange
glances because it looks like I just gave birth or something. But why do we have to hide it, both farting and the happiness it creates?
I’ll
tell you a story of a friend that I know:
During his day at school, this
friend was having a stomach ache and found that the cure was to make a trip to
the little boys’ room. School was out and not many people were around so he
figured that in an effort to avoid embarrassment with the task he was about to
execute, the public bathroom at the school would do just fine. Cheeks clenched,
he got to the bathroom and to his dismay found that there was another
participant locked away behind the not-so-private stall door. But it was much
too late to turn around and go to the other bathroom miles away, so he stumbled
to an empty stall and undid his pants and found that the stomach ache was caused
by a ton of pent-up gas from the day of holding it in public. Thinking it was
something else, he tried to relieve himself but found that noise was happening.
It kept happening, and happening, and nothing could stop him. The horror on his
face at the thought of what the other fellow might be thinking was outstanding.
He finally finished and started silently laughing, because what else can one
do? As he was laughing, he heard a roar in the toilet of the other fellow. A
sound so loud and so magnificent, it had to be a lion. It was uninterrupted and
perfectly poignant, and that’s when my friend realized it was the fellow’s
flatulence.
My friend continued to silently
laugh, but harder, and so much so that there were tears coming down from his
eyes. The other fellow flushed and managed to exit the bathroom without a word.
My friend regrets not getting to see who this fellow was, this noble and rare
creature. Alas, there is an unwritten rule of leaving the stalls at staggered
times as to not have to make eye-contact with people you have shared a poop
with. Was this fellow trying to console my friend from the accidental
embarrassing moment he had? Or was he trying to compete with my friend’s
outrageously long and ridiculous gas? One will never know.
If all people reacted as the
fellow did in the bathroom, then wouldn’t our world be a much happier place?
Instead of judging people with disgust at accidental vulgar moments, why not
just give them some comfort in knowing that they are not the only one. That
other people have been caught with their flies down, and other people have been
caught with snot dripping from their nose. It happens, and it is really nothing
to be ashamed of. It has nothing to do with your character, nor should you be
treated in a way that it might. There’s something to be said about people
who do stuff like that, they’re the people who will shave their heads to make
people going through chemo treatments more comfortable, among many other
wonderful things. We can stand to use more phantom farters in the world.
Until next time,
Dillon
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