Bathroom Etiquette

Just when I was getting over my bathroom phobias, this Senator Craig thing happens. Ignorance is bliss, or so I've been told an inordinate number of times, by too many people in my life

Well, as I passed 40 years of age, I was just getting comfortable with the Public Poop, and now I have a new stress as I hit public bathrooms - "will my actions be misconstrued as some unknown signaling that I'm looking for restroom romance?"

Look, I've mastered the common public bathroom etiquette - the "Courtesy Flush", the "2 Degrees of Stall Separation" and the "Urinal Tile Trance".

I know to "announce" my presence with a cough as someone enters a bathroom to avoid the chance they'll try to open my door. I've mastered the art of controlling bodily noises until I know I have an all-clear in the bathroom. I've also learned to combine the cough, the courtesy flush and newspaper shuffle to run interference for any unavoidable bodily noises tied to a Mexican dinner from the night before. It's part art, part science, but I do have it mastered, and it's one of those things I'll have to teach my own son, Zach someday.

Now, however, I have new things to teach. Don't tap your feet, have a wide bathroom stance or reach for anything on the floor or you may invite a visitor from a neighboring stall. And more than likely that person is an undercover cop.

How do you get that job? And how do you detail that on a resume?

The reality is that cops should have more important things to do. I'm surprised that this practice exists, but I do remember my friend Jeff Butler witnessed it in a stall next to him in Wescoe Hall at the University of Kansas back in the late '80's. To this day he still has issues with public bathrooms.

The cool thing was that their noises ran interference for his Taco Johns from the night before.

So, as Senator Craig flushed his career away, I'm left with a new stress in public bathrooms.

I've taken to walking into restrooms and announcing loudly - "I'm just here to poop, not interested in playing footsie with anyone" - I usually get a knowing chuckle or two as other guys acknowledge the change in the the public bathroom dynamic.

Guys can do what they want, I just don't happen to be into public, bathroom sex. I'm sure that if this were a heterosexual story, we'd all act differently about the story.

The hardest thing for me to deal with is that I've recently been Googling "Bathroom Signals", "Bathroom Protocols" etc. I'm sure the Homeland Security Office now has me followed at airports as I travel.

That's fine - it's a waste of money - all I ask is that you don't take the stall next to me.

That's all I have to say about that.