If I have one flaw as a human being it is that I wait too long to go to the bathroom. I have a tendency to 'hold it in,' up until the last possible moment so that when I finally do make my move to the bathroom, the need is fairly urgent. I don't know why I do this (ordinarily I do not hesitate in publicizing my private parts), but if the things you were doing were as interesting as the things I do, you might understand why I absolutely hate being interrupted by something as banal as relieving my bladder.
The problem with waiting so long is that there is always someone in the bathroom ahead of me. Now, ordinarily, I can put up with other people pretty well. I tolerate them with an admirable condescension. After all, I am a patient man. I prove this several times a day by not getting my coffee before the pot has finished brewing. It takes a lot of self-mastery, listening to those last gurgles of sweet liquid caffeine sputter towards completion, but that is just me. It's who I am.
But when you are waiting to pee, you really do get to see people's worst. What is it that people do in public restrooms that takes so long? Have you ever waited like this, listening to the obscure rustlings of a stranger from behind a bathroom door? Are they washing their hands again? Are they reading Tarot cards? Why are they coughing? And that noise, it sounds as if they were trying to escape out the window.
I'm not inhuman. I don't mind normal bathroom noises at all, no matter how disgusting. Those sounds at least mean that they are trying to do their job. It is the mysterious noises that anger me. Here I am, eyes turning yellow with pent-up urine, legs crossed standing up, hands-in-pocket pressing on my specials so as not to accidentally spill over, while they are inside doing God knows what! I am not shy. I'll try the handle - over and over. I'll put my ear to the door. Is that counting I hear? Or chanting? What the fuck is going on in there. Perhaps they are dying a sweater, or burning old love letters.
Yes, if I have one flaw is that my compulsion not to go to the bathroom early in the process has forced me to look at humanity from the other side of a locked men's room door - and hate what I see.
