So, I’m sitting in the men’s room, doing what one does when one sits in the men’s room, when, from the stall next to mine, I hear it:
Rattle. Rattle rattle rattle. Crinkle. *Munch.*
Yes. Yes, dear reader. That’s the unmistakeable sound of someone opening a snack pack, rummaging around in the back for a cookie, and eating it … while sitting on the throne.
Surely not, I thought. No one does that. These are civilized people. Professional people. People I might shake hands with later in the day. We don’t engage in simultaneous input and output. No. Never. I must have misheard —
— and then, it happens: the gentleman in the stall next to mine drops a Keebler Fudge Stripe cookie.
It smacks the floor, fudge side down. It shatters into three large and several smaller fragments.
There is a long pause.
And then:
Rattle. Rattle rattle rattle. Crinkle. *Munch.*
Telling this tale to friends and family has launched a debate about acceptable proximity between treats and toilets. I am firmly in the “Separate But Equal” camp, insisting that the world is a better place when eating and elimination are mutually exclusive activities. What’s more, I don’t want to eat anything that’s passed through a door labeled “Men’s” or “Women’s.”
Less fastidious friends confess they have, on occasion, snagged a to-go box from a cafeteria and carried it with them into the loo. (At least they left it on the lavatory, and didn’t dive into their caesar salad while sitting in the stall.) Others insist there’s nothing wrong with carrying coffee, tea, or other hot beverages into the restroom. (And some, under promise of anonymity, confessed they sip from their travel mug while standing at the urinal.)
Oddly (to me, at least), ladies are more forgiving of the practice of feeling peckish in the pitstop. But, as some have pointed out, their world is very different from mine, as ladies’ rooms are apparently outfitted with couches. And banquettes. And bouquets. And string quartets.
Having these amenities in the men’s room wouldn’t sway me a bit. I don’t even like to rinse out my coffee mug in the restroom sink. There’s something about coming out of the restroom with a warm, steaming cup that just turns me off.
No, eating in the men’s room is not for me. I don’t think I can be convinced otherwise. But if I should ever deign to dine while doing my business, you may rest assured of one thing:
I will not be eating anything called a “fudge stripe.”
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