Friday, March 30, 2007
Pissing In The Wind
There are three urinals in the Gents on our floor at Company X.
They are equally spaced, and much too close to each other. You would never consider using a urinal if the one next to it was in use because, quite frankly, it would seem indecent.
It’s one thing for two men to be standing in the same room with their knobs hanging out, but its quite another matter if they are rubbing shoulders at the same time.
There is therefore an unspoken etiquette: if you find yourself alone in the toilets, you use either the one to the left or the right.
You absolutely do not choose the middle urinal, because if somebody else comes along they’ll have to wait until you’re finished. You are now under pressure to immediately produce a loud and lavish stream of waste - “Listen to that! Niagara Falls! There’s nothing dubious about my manliness!” - while the other bloke holds his fire at a respectable distance behind you, no doubt staring at the two perfectly functional but unusable urinals to your left and right.
You have created what psychologists refer to as ‘an awkward moment’.
If you are the other bloke, instead of waiting you could always have a piss in one of the toilet cubicles, but then you’ll look like a prude. You will become the boy at school who always wore swimming trunks in the showers. You don’t want to seem ashamed of your nakedness in the company of others, but neither do you want to appear excessively enthusiastic.
This morning, Creepy Keith from Accounts was stood for an eternity at the wrong urinal, bluetoothing Jeanette from the Introductions Agency about his latest disappointing date.
“I’m telling you Jeanette,” he yelled, the human equivalent of a dose of thrush, “in her photo she looked like Christina Aguilera. In the flesh she was more Chris Evans.”
I waited patiently for too long but then Mike came in for his 10:30, so I pretended that I’d only gone in to rinse out my mug then went to use the one upstairs instead.
They are equally spaced, and much too close to each other. You would never consider using a urinal if the one next to it was in use because, quite frankly, it would seem indecent.
It’s one thing for two men to be standing in the same room with their knobs hanging out, but its quite another matter if they are rubbing shoulders at the same time.
There is therefore an unspoken etiquette: if you find yourself alone in the toilets, you use either the one to the left or the right.
You absolutely do not choose the middle urinal, because if somebody else comes along they’ll have to wait until you’re finished. You are now under pressure to immediately produce a loud and lavish stream of waste - “Listen to that! Niagara Falls! There’s nothing dubious about my manliness!” - while the other bloke holds his fire at a respectable distance behind you, no doubt staring at the two perfectly functional but unusable urinals to your left and right.
You have created what psychologists refer to as ‘an awkward moment’.
If you are the other bloke, instead of waiting you could always have a piss in one of the toilet cubicles, but then you’ll look like a prude. You will become the boy at school who always wore swimming trunks in the showers. You don’t want to seem ashamed of your nakedness in the company of others, but neither do you want to appear excessively enthusiastic.
This morning, Creepy Keith from Accounts was stood for an eternity at the wrong urinal, bluetoothing Jeanette from the Introductions Agency about his latest disappointing date.
“I’m telling you Jeanette,” he yelled, the human equivalent of a dose of thrush, “in her photo she looked like Christina Aguilera. In the flesh she was more Chris Evans.”
I waited patiently for too long but then Mike came in for his 10:30, so I pretended that I’d only gone in to rinse out my mug then went to use the one upstairs instead.

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