It’s a bathroom-tastic week here at The Half Truth.

Dear Caroline,

What is your opinion about talking and socializing while in the bathroom? It happens a lot but …what if it continues while you both go to your respective stalls?

Or what if it is taking place while you are in the stall and others are all around you chatting up their outfits while grooming and hand washing?

Love,

No Chatter in the Shatter

Dear Chatter,

How nice for you that this is your biggest concern in your bathroom life. My more immediate concern is what do you do if you need to doo and someone walks into the bathroom with you? Is the courtesy flush passe? But, hey, if chit chat is your big concern, chit chat we will discuss.

What I really wonder is whether the gents are chatting it up while holding their members and standing like criminals in a lineup. There is nary a story I’ve been told from the male perspective that doesn’t have something about “my buddy and I were in the bathroom, talking about tits”– or some variation and it does give me pause to think that us women folk feel so awkward about talking and tinkling. (Then again, there is something that the closed door brings to the the situation. It’s another thing entirely if we were all sitting on stall-less potties, I imagine that then it would feel awkward not to talk. You’d just be staring at your fellow coworker sitting there… doing whatever she is doing…)

My first response? No. No talking in the toilet room. But then I think to myself, “self, you talk while flossing, brushing your teeth, you’ve likely talked while passing gas, or thinking about random sweaty sex with a stranger. When, then, does it seem so taboo to talk while tinkling?” And then I remember. It’s about poo.

Sure, if every girl was simply having some tinkle time, I’d say talk away. But there’s no telling. You have to pretend that anyone, at anytime, needs some personal time. There could be poo in the equation and as long as there is that chance, you need to shut the fuck up and get out of the bathroom. Quit your gossiping and hair primping and leave the potential pooers in peace.

Think of it… the men have an automatic silent signal. If there is an open urinal and a man chooses the stall, he’s either got a stream issue or a poo sitch. There’s no conversation about it amongst the masses, simply a silent reverie. A man is having a moment. Leave him and speak not of this to anyone.

Not so with the ladies. There is a Victorian-era hangover that assumes ladies don’t use the toilet. We simply enter the stall to think about fairies and butterflies and take deep breaths. We gather, clump even. We chat about the weather (or each other) without considering even for a moment that the shoes under the stall door, the ones that havent moved the entire time we’ve been there, belong to someone who is breaking out in a cold sweat waiting for us to leave to they can have some peace and quiet.

My advice to you (and everyone else) is to keep the porcelain palace sacred. There exists no greater concentration of karma in the entire universe then right there between those tiles. If you choose to talk, do it only with the full and binding knowledge that someday its going to be you in there, listening to girls twirl their hair and talk about white wine while your fight back the sweet water and full body chills, bartering with God to please, please, please make them leave. Please.

To a peaceful…

Caroline

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