At the end of lunch at work today I went into the bathroom. Unbeknownst to me, I would find myself retreating from it seconds later.
My mind was kind of drifting at the time I walked in. I was reflecting on the receptionist girl in our office, whose desk I walk by every time I come in at the beginning of the day (and after lunch if I drive off somewhere for it) to get my parking ticket stamped so I don't have to pay the parking charge for the garage. They didn't buy me a parking pass because as a consultant I'm supposed to be on the road a lot, but as they have yet to ship me out anywhere the receptionist and I have for weeks been going through this ritual of me handing her my ticket, her stamping it, me saying "thank you" and her replying "you're welcome", and for some reason it cracks me up every now and then thinking about it.
It was cracking me up at the time I walked into the bathroom this afternoon - I started giggling under my breath randomly. Then it occurred to me that I'd just stopped in front of the toilet stalls, and that there might be someone inside one of them listening to me from the other side of the door. It turns out this was exactly the case, as I heard a stirring behind the stall door I was standing right in front of.
I heard the guy stand up and begin to wipe, and I started edging toward the door nervously, pondering the idea of postponing my own bowel movement to take cover in the office. (The bathroom is in the hallway outside my company's office, and is shared by several companies who rent on the floor there.) I had no time to fully consider my options, though, as the guy flushed the toilet after just one wipe. Afraid of having the guy see my face and find out who the weirdo was that was giggling outside his stall while he was trying to shit, I began heading out the door, just as the guy was opening the door to his stall.
I hustled down the hallway to the office door, and had barely reached it when I heard the bathroom door re-open, as if the guy hadn't even bothered to wash his hands. Was he trying to get a look at my face? I swung open the door to my office and ducked inside, hoping he wasn't one of my coworkers about to follow me in. It's possible he caught a glimpse of me at the last moment, but thankfully the office door never opened behind me. After laying low for a minute or two, I went back to the bathroom and had it all to myself.