Literally, The World's Most Awkward Moment
Today started like any other normal Tuesday. A banana and some oatmeal for breakfast, unnecessary traffic on I275, and the Joe Rogan Podcast on the car stereo. I never would have guessed that the world's most awkward moment was only a few hours away. Had I known, I suppose I probably would've still continued on. You know, because who doesn't love a good "poop story"?
Fast forward to about 11:21am. I'm on my second cup of bland "office coffee", and the belly rumble finally starts. Typically, I'm a 9:31am pooper, so I'm a little behind schedule for the day.
My office building is two stories, with my company taking up the entire top floor, and various companies occupying the bottom floors. Not ever wanting to "shit where I eat", I always take the stairs down to the first floor. There are three bathroom options down there: Ladies, Men's, and the gloriously private single-occupancy unisex bathroom I've affectionately named the "Luxury Suite". Unfortunately, today's fortune is going to involve bathroom mingling with the "common folk".
The men's bathroom has three stalls: two regular size stalls and a handicap stall at the end. It's sort of a quiet time in the bathroom today, so I decide to gamble and take the very roomy handi-stall. Just so much more room for activities.
After a quick seat wipe-down, and a strategic laying of "toilet paper runways", I sit, take a deep breath and prepare for launch. It doesn't take long at all for my brown divers to make their leap into the oval shaped pool. I barely had enough time to grab my phone to check the latest 1,834 social media posts about Trump.
During this beginning stage, I overhear another "common folk" entering the bathroom, and ruining my zen-like, quiet bathroom experience. A few seconds later, this guy (assumingly) claims the stall RIGHT NEXT TO ME. He completely abandons all protocol of bathroom etiquette, and leaves no "buffer stall" in between us. He quickly drops trou, and begins his very liquidy sounding business.
Well, a few minutes go by, and my duty here is done. I could tell that this going to be a very Exxon-Valdez style cleanup. I've always played this bathroom game with myself where I try to guess how many wipes it's going to take before finally reaching the final clean-wipe. Today's guess is 11 wipes, so you can only imagine how much I'm going to hate this project.
If you must know (and you must, to understand the next part of the story), I'm a stand-up wiper. I know that I'm not alone in my technique. I've definitely had this conversation before. I get that I'm in a minority, but nevertheless, I stand to wipe.
Upon the initial wipe of the cleanup process, my gut-feelings were validated, as this is definitely going to be quite the project. And, then....on wipe #3...it happens. Somehow, in an attempt to discard the very now-brown toilet paper into the toilet, I have some sort of a seizure, and miss the toilet entirely. As it falls to the ground (in slow motion in my mind), it bounces off the side of the toilet, hits the ground, and continues to slide directly into the next stall
BROWN-SIDE UP
It comes to rest, ever so gently, caressing my Stall Brother's leather loafer. There are very few times in my life I find myself speechless. This will be one of those times. There are only losing options in this scenario: Reach down into another man's stall and grab the toilet paper? Ask for "a little help"? Pull up my pants and run out of the bathroom unclean?
My response was simply this:
"I'm not exactly sure what to do here".
No man wants to break the unwritten law of bathroom etiquette by speaking to another man in the stall next to him, but I believe this to be uncharted waters here.
Without uttering a sound, he puts his foot on the toilet paper, and starts to slide it over to me. But, unfortunately for him, he approached this action a bit too aggressively, and the toilet paper stuck to his shoe as he attempted to retract his foot. As he gave it a second attempt, I had to use my foot to anchor down the messy, torn, pillow of shame while his foot retreated in the opposite direction.
"Thanks, bro"
That was all I could think to say. As I picked up the t.p., CAREFULLY placing in the toilet, and finished my cleanup responsibilities, I was left to wonder: which one of us is left with the better story???
photo reenacted for context
