Extra Pedestrian

I've been told I have a great memory, and to a large degree, I believe it. I see very vivid images and feel very powerful emotions left over from endless childhood, teenage, and adult memories, many of which still drive many of my peculiar habits, fears, likes, peeves, and so on. I can recite, often in great detail, things that happened in my life as far back as my Spy Era -- which, as I so often do in regular conversation, I must now make an abrupt 90-degree turn to explain. I read Calvin & Hobbes comic strips and books religiously as a child, and likely into my early teen years. I could spend a lot of time talking about the brilliance of this particular corner of the comic strip world, but the internet is already full of information on, praise for, and philosophical waxing about young Calvin and his pet tiger, Hobbes. While a large part of author Bill Watterson's genius resided in his ability to bring legitimate philosophical ideas into such a medium, he was al...

I keep trying to think of how I should preface what's to follow, but each attempt has turned into what would better serve as a spin-off post regarding the enigma that is the office bathroom. There is so much to consider on this topic -- office size, coworker demographics, stall/urinal etiquette, the baffling lack of white noise, any number of ruminations on timing. It's overwhelming, really.   But for today, we'll skip ahead a bit, to an idea typically kept quiet, except among the most trusted of coworkers -- the hidden bathroom. Now, I say hidden, but this is usually a misnomer. To my knowledge, there are very few cases wherein an office bathroom is concealed by a bookcase-operated rotating wall, like some sort of Holy Golden Toilet (band name alert!), discoverable only by Indiana Jones and his Nazi rivals (questionable band name alert). Rather, such a bathroom is merely isolated, whether by frequency, demographics, or location. Perhaps your hidden bathroom is ...