Emily and I are currently camping in Nickerson State Park on Cape Cod. It’s a huge campground with hundreds of sites, and even past peak season it’s nearly at capacity. There just a few building with showers for the entire campground. The other night I visited one of them for the first time.
Inside, three shower stalls lined the back wall. Only one other person was in the men’s room, and he was in the middle of the three stalls. “Fish,” I thought to myself as I, seeing no other option, selected the cleaner of the two adjacent stalls.
With nothing better to think about as I showered, I contemplated his serious breach of bathroom ethics. Every man deserving of the name knows that when three adjacent stalls/urinals are available, you take one of the ones on the end so that should a second man enter, he doesn’t have to stand/sit immediately next to you. Only the most conniving, under-handed homosexual would do otherwise.
It was at about this time that I noticed four more, completely empty shower stalls on the opposite wall and realized the gravity of my error. While casting aspersions upon this other gentleman’s bathroom ethics, I’d committed a far more egregious breach myself. Despite a room full of empty stalls, I’d selected the one that brought me into closest proximity to his wet, naked body. If was now standing over in his stall contemplating what a creepy, possibly dangerous sexual deviant I must be, well, he could hardly be blamed.
LOL donkaments! Dirty old man, you are.
However, as every slippery poker player knows, you can always come up with a metagame justifcation for a perceived “errant move”. One principle that trumps male bathroom ethics is general public washroom safety. Only someone insane would choose the stall next to the guy who is already in there if many other stalls are available. No better way to ensure that you are left alone than being perceived as insane.
For all you know, that guy was an axe murderer. As I recap that “hand”, your digression from ABC play might have saved your life. 😉
This really made me laugh. The upside is once word gets out the camp site should clear quickly.
haha! very funny. Although, when encountering similar problems (as this totally applies to women as well), it has occurred to me that maybe the other stalls were occupied until just before you walked in, so the other guy was forced into the middle shower stall and is aware that you think he committed a breach and feels bad about it (I’ve also been the person forced into the middle). This always happens to me on treadmills at the gym. There’s only three, and I’ve often been forced into the middle and then left there alone.
On a side note, there is one woman on my lab floor who always uses the middle bathroom stall even when they’re all empty. Weird.
As a reply on Shorty, you always should think as if you were the other person and reason the best thing for him to do. So, if i truely am the axemurderer i am in my bathroom stall fully clothed with the water running. I’ll make sure i wear some stuff in which i won’t get wet and which rinses off easily afterwards. Now you can take any cell you like, i will wait until you have the water running…
Now that would clear the camp site pretty quickly when the news spreads.
But luckily i am one of those guys that sees more expected value in having a guy at the poker table without his arms chopped off.
🙂
Wow, this conversation has taken a turn for the weird…