men's room ettiquette.....

I try to write posts that aren't gender biased. While my writing is from the male perspective, I try not to alienate any of my 4 readers. But let me state that this one is aimed at the guys. Ladies, I do encourage you to read this and discuss it with any men you might know so that you can provide me with some feedback. It's about men's room ettiquitte.

Now I'm not talking about wiping up around the sink after washing your hands; I'm not speaking of taking your newspapers/magazines with you when you're finished; I'm not even going to elaborate on "forgetting" to flush. No, this one is baffling to me. And it's getting worse.

Last week I stepped into a men's room on my way to the other side of the building. The guy I carpool with, "Bob", happened to be in there and we started talking. I went to wash my hands and someone else came into the bathroom and stood beside Bob. The guy proceeded to break wind. Loud and long wind. Thunderous, rip-roaring, ducked-stepped-on, jaw-dropping gas. I looked in the mirror and Bob happened to look over his shoulder as if to say, "What the.....". We talked about it on the way home that day. And while neither of us consider ourselves to be of the upper-crust of society, we both felt that this was beyond rude. Of course we laughed about it, be we still considered it gauche.

I thought this was an isolated instance. Surely this kind of thing was rare. Happened to me again yesterday. No warning, no apology, just a huge sigh of relief when he finished. So apparently there are fewer and fewer "safe zones" here in the building.

What's going on with the world today? What happened to being embarrassed about flatulence around the workplace? What happened to holding it until you were alone? What happened to a simple "pull my finger" to at least give those around you some warning?

Ray McRae (junior high/high school/college friend) used to describe himself as "crude, rude and downright indecent" when we were in college. (I need to remember to write about some of the things we did during our freshman year; almost cost me my degree, but I was young.) You knew that about him going in, so it was sort of overlooked. But to be "shot at" by someone you barely know, I just don't know.....