I’m a Bathroom Talker

Some people like Cat Stevens. Others like group sex. I don’t particularly care for either, but what I do like is talking in the bathroom. I like it so much that Bathroom Talker stationary and an official Du Rag may be in order.

The bathroom is modernity’s phone booth and I’ll gladly deposit another quarter when prompted. Public, private, co-ed, no-ed – you give me a bathroom, I’ll give you a good time. Simply put, conversation just goes better with tiled floors, toilets, and mirrors. Especially full length mirrors. Just add a little room for pacing and you’re golden. But not in the shower kind of way.

Before you puke in your mouth and then swallow it, let me be clear: My bathroom conversation habits are not of the on-the-toilet variety. This is not a hold-your-breath homage to pant-wrapped ankle efficiency because in case you haven't heard, Multitasking is on holiday and we’ve hired a temp.¹

Food has delivery services. Hemorrhoids have Preparation-H. Conversation has the bathroom and bathroom mirrors. All are classic examples of life’s inevitabilities made better by innovation and vanity. And in the case of conversation, made better by a million times infinity to the twentieth power. Pow!

Today is Monday. It is a Monday whose afternoon featured a phone conversation in a three-stalled bathroom. There, I sashayed in front of two mirrors and came to the following conclusions:

Conclusion 1: If I could clone humans, I would not do so to create a mutant army, cure disease, or resurrect extinct species. I figure the flora, fauna, and what-have-yous are dead for a reason and that reason is paper taxidermy. Go visit your library’s reference section. They’re called books, dig?²

Conclusion 2: If I could clone humans, I would clone myself. “Hi, my name is your name. Wanna be my girlfriend?” She’d obviously say yes because I am melt-in-your-mouth-but-not-on-your-clothes arm candy and I give good toothache. I’m also as a fabulous raconteur. Conversation with me flows like a hot stream of molten rock, devastating everything in its path, one word at a time.

Conclusion 3: Some people should not be allowed to drink in the company of others. Especially not in public places where they’re free to be their white-trashy but too sweet to be creepy drunken selves. It’s one thing when you hold the door open for Drunk Guy on your way out of the bathroom (i.e. common courtesy), but it’s a whole other spool of time vacuum when what should be a three to five second interaction turns into ten minutes of Drunk Guy talking about his relationship problems and asking you hypothetical questions about “Ifs” that will never happen. And yes, Drunk Guy, I do know that I’m drop dead gorgeous. I’ve died many times while looking at myself. And no, I don’t care that girlfriend Bubblegum has come to hate her body. She should take that up with Lou Reed and you, sir, should go pee.

Conclusion 4: If I could clone myself, I wouldn’t do it. The clone would taint the sanctity of my private bathroom conversations. And she’d grow jealous of my overbearing let’s-be-best-friends-like-forever relationship with reflective surfaces. Invariably, I’d have to break her heart and run the risk of accidentally killing myself in the process because of the identical DNA thing. I think I’ll pass.

All in all, today’s bathroom-talking mission was a success. And while walking out of the three-stalled, two-mirrored paradise, a few things looked certain. Life would continue playing its game of ambiguity hopscotch. People would continue claiming to know things they don’t. And I would continue taking my phone calls in the bathroom.


¹ The temp is a living incarnation of Beck’s Nightmare Hippy Girl and, for better or worse, she spends most of her time in the bathroom, talking.

² Or shovel.