The Hidden Bathroom

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 on a sparsely populated floor, or else one on which the opposite sex is dispropotionately represented. Or you may also consider the bathroom 'hidden' by it's own qualities -- the walls and doors of the stalls reach floor-to-ceiling, or the affectionately-nicknamed "fart fan" is the repurposed engine of an F-18 Super Hornet. However you define it, the hidden office bathroom is a special gem, a precious secret, a tightly-guarded Ace in the hole.

 
My hidden bathroom is a single-stall, single-urinal, walk-in closet located eleven floors below my office, across from the multi-toileted gym locker room, in a hallway sealed by a security-locked door requiring a personal identification code and matching finger print. Office visitors cannot get past the security door, and there are no offices located on that hallway. Most company personnel in the area are coming from the gym, and, if they had so-needed, probably already utilized the facilities located within the locker room. In that way, my hidden bathroom is hidden in almost every non-Indiana Jones manner.

Having worked together at a prior company, my brother and I had batted this topic around a few times in the past, so I felt compelled to text him on the day I discovered a hidden bathroom in my new office building. I joked about hearing other men enter the room, pause, pivot on one foot and leave, realizing the lone stall was occupied. I imagined their plight, their anger, and the names they'd called me under their breath. Steve and I exchanged a few humorous, jokingly celebratory messages, and left it at that. Until a few days, maybe two weeks later, when a particularly eventful trip to the Hidden Bathroom brought the topic back up for me. What started as a quick text message to make fun of my adventure quickly evolved into a multi-page narrative. 

I realize it's potty humor, and I'm almost sorry for that, but I admittedly chuckled a little as I wrote it, and a few family members have seen (and laughed at) it by now, so I figured I might as well bring it to ExtraPedestrian -- with some editing and a few additions -- for posterity. 

Enjoy.

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Abruptly returning to The Hidden Bathroom Chronicles...

After a relatively early lunch with coworkers, I felt a similarly early urge to put myself through the 5-Minute Weightloss Program this afternoon. With trouble a-brewin', I hustled to the elevator bay and punched my hand wrist-deep into the 'down' button. I do not recall the elevator ride down. Perhaps the 11-floor ride has grown too routine, or maybe I zoned out while nervously fumbling through social media on my phone. But I may just as well have blacked out from strain. I really cannot be certain.

Coming to my senses upon arrival at the second floor, I sauntered casually toward the T-shaped intersection at the end of the elevator bay. To the left, the hallway proceeded to either the parking garage walk-over, the 2nd floor cafeteria, or the escalators to the first floor lobby. Turning right, however, meant either the gym, or The Can. Between my dressy attire and the odd hour of the day, one could easily surmise that the gym would not be my destination. This being the case, I broke from my feigned non-chalance and challenged speed-walking records in an effort to conceal my pursuit of gastro-intestinal freedom.

Having either beaten me to the punch or having just finished a late workout -- maybe both -- an unfamiliar coworker came forth from the security door that stood between me and the right-side doorway to the Hidden Bathroom. Our eyes meeting as we passed, I sensed sympathy in his knowing glance. I feared the worst -- that I would find Hidden Bathroom to be occupied. I also feared the second-worst -- that Unfamiliar Coworker had just ass-burned the paint off the bathroom walls, and my afternoon was soon to end with me in a soiled, unconscious heap on a bathroom floor. I suppose it's also possible that Unfamiliar Coworker saw the nervousness in my eyes and the unease of my gait, and recognized the burden I carried. We exchanged nods, and brief greetings, mine considerably more garbled than his.

"Hey."

"Harrya."

Returning my focus to the darkening cloud on my horizon, I noticed that the security door was still closing, and that I could possibly save myself a step if I doubled my pace and lunged. In my haste, however, I clumsily bumped the door handle, loudly sealing the door. Not only did I find myself momentarily delayed, but now I was stranded, an anxious-looking and head-lit deer, haplessly tugging on a locked door. I gathered my nerves well enough to successfully enter my personal code into the security panel, and pressed my finger to the scanner. That's right -- if I had made any designs on vacating my colon, I'd first need to nail a notoriously flimsy finger-print scanning.  

Ding. 

Green light. 

I'm in.

I turned the door knob and hurled myself forward, spirits soaring. Suddenly, like a charging mastiff violently halted by a taut chain, I found myself yanked backward, something tugging at my waist. The loud rattling of glass wall surrounding the door reverberated down the hall and into the downstairs lobby, a final and fatal blow to any remaining hopes of a stealthy restroom escape. I raised my elbows slightly and checked my right hip. Before clearing the security door, I'd taken the right-hand turn towards the Hidden Bathroom too quickly, catching my belt loop on the latch in the door frame. For the second time in five seconds, I was a stranded, dead-to-rights deer, caught not by headlights this time, but rather by snare-trap. Earth is cruel, belt loops doubly so. Freeing myself only by backing up and manually slipping the loop off of the latch, I exhaled and proceeded through the next door -- the Hidden Bathroom door.

The moment of truth came and passed so quickly, only a subtle, putt-nailing fist-pump came to mind -- I found Hidden Bathroom not only free of interlopers, but also of any back-drafting Wall of Methane. While a French bakery certainly didn't come to mind, I found relief in knowing the tiny hairs in my nostrils would live to fight another day. Rejoice, Booger Nets, the day is yours.

The greater majority of the next few minutes or so was relatively uneventful, and frankly, none of your damn business. But suffice it to say, I'd likely gained a solid half-inch on my vertical jump, not to mention a markedly improved disposition.

While plotting my hopefully undetectable escape from the Hidden Bathroom, an unpredictable obstacle befell me as complete darkness blanketed the room. The 6-foot walls of the bathroom stall had concealed my presence from the light-controlling motion sensor on the ceiling. Not that I'd done much moving in the last few minutes, but still...

Cautiously -- in fear of possible hangers-on -- I rose to about 3-quarters height. No change, still pitch black. With a scrape-scrape-scrape I slid my feet across the width of the absurdly large stall, pushing my legs outward to hold my pants off the floor, and waving my hands wildly overhead. Somewhere in central Africa, a chimpanzee kept the universe in balance by delivering an involuntary burst of Shakespearian monologue. Back in the Hidden Bathroom, however, no result, still darkness. The sensor was too far away -- almost directly over the bathroom door. I tried lighting the stall with my cell phone's flashlight, but the darkness was so dense, so thorough, as to drown out most of what light the tiny flash bulb could provide. 

There was no way around it: I had to chimp-walk my way out into the main bathroom area, holding my pants in such a manner as to cloak They Who Dangle, while keeping the rest of the pant material away from the still-smoking blast zone out back. I kept my right-hand free to continue waving at the sensor. I worried that some unfortunate fellow might come through the door, instantly flooding the room with light, only to find themselves face-to-face with a wide-eyed, half-exposed, shat-butt chimp-man, hurriedly scurrying backward into toilet-stall safety. Thankfully, God proved himself, and the door remained closed.  

Catching the sensor's infuriatingly narrow eye, the lights finally clicked back to life, and I was able to proceed with the kind of disaster recovery typically reserved for force majeur aftermaths. This seems like an opportune time for encouraging everyone to donate to the Red Cross.

With a new lease on freedom, I washed and dried my hands. Pausing to catch myself in the mirror, I grinned and gave my reflection a confident nod of solidarity. I'd come through this challenge relatively unscathed, like so many before, and in doing so had rediscovered the fortitude and gumption necessary to meet the face of whatever obstacles life had in store. 

Life gleams anew, hope springs eternal, and Friday glints on the horizon.

Excelsior.