Center Stage

As a self induced rule, I try not to post about work in my various online journals and if I do, I make the entries private. But this story really needs to be told. Screw the consequences.

There are two ladies restrooms in my office. Both are single occupancy. My preferred one is tucked around a corner and pretty far away from every occupied workspace. I go there because it's quiet. I go there because it's safe. I go there because sometimes a lady just needs to feel she's completely alone when she's taking a tinkle.

But I do go through a lot of water during the day and sometimes wait a little bit too long. Inevitably, I'll be on the phone with a customer when the urgency hits. By the time I get them to shut up and stop talking business, I have precious few seconds to make it to the ladies room to take care of my own business. In those instances, I'm forced to use the bathroom I like to refer to as "Center Stage." Everything happens just outside the door. Judi's desk is there. The mail distribution area is there. The Goddamned front door is right there.
I hate using Center Stage.

Today, my hatred multiplied 10-fold.

As I scurried in, checked the door at least 3 times to make sure it was locked (Yeah call me OCD if you want. I'm not about to suffer the embarrasment of having it fling wide open just as some poor, unsuspecting UPS delivery guy is stepping in the front door!) and headed toward the "throne" I noticed something in the bowl. Something solid. Something brown. Something that came from someone else's ass.

Disgusting!!!

I am never going back into Center Stage again.

Yet I feel obligated to somehow save my other female coworkers from this horrifying experience. I could go directly to the suspected source, but how do you tactfully approach that subject? "So, I noticed your turd flush didn't really take today." Yeah. Not something you can just casually bring up in conversation.

I thought about typing up one of those cutsie pseudo-rhyming verses and taping it to the bathroom mirror (Please do stick around to make sure what you've flushed goes down. If it doesn't, hit the lever again - out of respect for your coworkers and friends.) But I fear my saying may wind up printed on every imaginable type of cheap bathroom art you can buy in those catalogs at your grandmother's house and my anonymity will cheat me out of the millions of dollars I could make off Red Hat wearers everywhere.

It's just too much responsibility. I literally can't take this shit.

I think my only option is to pretend I never saw it and stifle my giggles the next time I hear someone shriek as they take Center Stage.