Open (Open (Close)

The bathrooms in our new offices are stalls, three freshly-painted units that stand briskly at attention like soliders, just waiting for the inevitable awkward moment when there is more than one person in the room. I’m of the opinion that three stalls is a terrible number for bathrooms, beat only by two, or the worst of all, the rare inexplicable one stall — with its lonely sink and mirror outside. The few-stalled bathroom says “we don’t expect enough of you for this to be a social affair, but there are too many people in this space for a single bathroom, so occasionally you’ll just have to buck up and share.” It has none of the anonymity of, say, a twenty-stalled bathroom, and also none of the privacy of, say, a single room. It says “you can basically expect privacy, except maybe not. So watch out for that.”

I’ve noticed lately, however, that the lights are on a motion-detected timer. This is inspiring a mischief in me that I haven’t felt since high school, when we considered the school pool getting locked up at night. How still would it be, with no shouts echoing in the locker room, that usually-flourescent high-ceilinged room dark and empty? What would it feel like to be in a space when you weren’t expected or noticed? Unseen and unheard, we would essentially become ghosts, haunting another world to leave only traces of an unwelcome visit. Puddles, rearranged goggles and flippers. Left feet matched with left feet. Life preservers mysteriously organized by color.

Sweet!

In this manner, I often think to myself when I enter our office building bathrooms: how long would I have to sit here, completely still, for the lights to turn off with me inside? How could I use this to my advantage?

Everyone knows it’s creepy to hide inside of women’s bathrooms, so I am trying to refrain from coming up with any good ideas. But I can’t help but consider the possibilities.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 11:41 am and is filed under Dear Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.