A Delicate Little Question of Etiquette

The perils of corporate employment are like entering a child's room: you know there are going to be nasty things in there, but you never know exactly when you're going to walk right into them.

And so it was that it came to pass that I had to enter the corporate women's room, again. This zone had already proven problematic for a number of reasons; for example, I don't know about you, but I'm still not certain of the etiquette involved when you discover that the stall you favor is the same one preferred by your boss. Obviously, entering a stall that's already occupied is not an option, but should you then eschew that stall altogether? Or would that be overthinking a non-issue?

Anyway, on the occasion about which I intended to speak when I began this entirely pointless insomniacal interlude was this: I'd entered the bathroom and was immediately assaulted by loud, rapid-fire conversation that was both annoyingly animated and inconveniently incomprehensible, as it was being conducted in a language with which I was entirely unfamiliar.

Not being a fan of stall-to-stall discussions, particularly when the participants are not located in adjacent stalls, I nonetheless assumed a position between the two closed doors. While preparing to do my business—hey, dressy pants aren't as easy to undo as jeans, what with their multiple means of closure—I couldn't help but notice that aside from a very brief pause or two, Loud Talker #1 had not given Silent Participant #2 a chance to get a word in edgewise.

There was also something else bothering me about the entire scenario, but I couldn't quite figure it out ... I searched my limited repetoire of visits to this particular bathroom, trying to isolate the niggling concern, and that's when it hit me: the other closed door had been the handicapped-accessible stall at the end of the row, and due to the outward-swinging nature of its door, it was always closed, regardless of its state of use or non-use.

The full horror of the situation hit me like a slap on the cheek—no, not THAT cheek—a moment later when, during a very brief silence in Loud Talker #1's stream of foreign language consciousness, I heard the small but unmistakable sound of a slightly tinny version of "Silent" Participant #2's voice emanating from ... the cellphone in Loud Talker #1's stall.

Now I was not only reluctant to attend to the actual, room-appropriate reason I'd entered this bathroom, I wasn't entirely sure I could do it if I tried. The idea of taking a leak in the echo-y confines of a bathroom—corporate or not—that was already in use as a telephone booth was both ooky and uncomfortable. But as I pondered my options, Loud Talker #1, without skipping a laughing, loud-talking beat, did a little business herself.

Oh yes. She "went" there.

My decision instantly and irrevocably made (however silly), I stood, reattached the buttons, hooks, and zipper of my very businesslike pants, and exited without passing "Go." That I had to walk past the still-talking and occasionally going Loud Talker #1 was, I felt, more than close enough, and not having accomplished anything but the dropping of drawers, I did not even feel the need to wash my hands. My own BATHROOM needs were attended to quickly on another floor of the building, thanks to the standard structure of large buildings which tends to stack bathrooms in direct vertical proximity to one another.

But I still don't know what would possibly pass for the proper etiquette response to an utterly improper and rudely presumptuous reassignment of a bathroom stall as a communications facility. And goodness only knows what would Silent Participant #2 would have thought if Loud Talker #1 would have had her statements punctuated by an industrial-strength roar of a FLUSH—hell, with a noise THAT loud, she could have driven right off the road!

No matter how you look at it, or what the "right" thing to do is in a wrong situation, I think it's safe to say that talking on a cellphone in the bathroom is not only a bad idea, but it's a downright crappy thing to do. (Yes, I know that's bad and obvious, but it's also justifiable: you gotta work with the material you're given. Because otherwise, well, you're writing fiction, I guess! Not that there's anything wrong with that.)