Note: The second part of All Apologies will be up early next week. In the interim, here's this.
I'm assaulted dozens of times a day. In so many ways, I'm forced to view, to listen to, to consider, the absurd, the ugly and the flat out disturbing. These assaults come in various forms. There's Phil from the appellate group who leaves at least one 5mm day glo bright whitehead on his face at all times. You've got Ed from the copy room who smiles broadly - his teeth littered with chunks of roast beef and cheese - while you fill out his copy forms. There's Melvin the mail room assistant who's never heard of deodorant. Oh, and Kathy, the secretary down the hall with emphysema, coughing, then swallowing, then re-coughing back into her mouth the same slug of phlegm all day long. I can't forget Tim, the quiet, lanky, pubescently acned associate down the hall who's perpetually picking his nose. And back in the golden age of corporate casual, before they banned the office sweat suit look, there was Gladys and Delores, the dumpy, lazy, 45ish gave-up-on-life-at-19 200lb assistants who sat outside my office. Gladys, a/k/a "Cameltoe," wore pink or green stretch pants which, strained far beyond the capabilities of state of the art polyester, frequently exposed, as though they were body paint, the outline of the gaping crevice in her udder-like genitals. Dolores, a/k/a "Double Ass," wore pleated women's Dockers three sizes too small, which highlighted an amazing "gunt" that protruded as much in front as her ass did in the back - basically, Homer Simpson's body with a set of tits. With the wrong eyes, on a rough morning after a long night out, you couldn't tell from a modest distance whether she was coming or going.
But these sensory assaults are minor. The most offensive of all the assaults is by far the "Mental Rape." The Mental Rape occurs when someone says something which forces you to visualize them, or someone you know, doing something you'd never want to consider them doing. I can only explain the Mental Rape by doing it to you:
Usually, mental rapists are well meaning people who don't realize they're battering your brain. Often, it's a new mother talking to another woman. "It got so bad I was bleeding, so I just decided to use the breast pump." This woman has no idea that she's just made it impossible for you to give the letter you're holding to your secretary with whom she was just discussing breast pumping loudly enough for you to overhear. You can't look either one of them in the eye because all you can picture is the new mom with bleeding nipples and an electric vacuum attached to her breasts, like something out of a snuff film.
Sometimes, the offender will think their sharing of intimate details is hip or cool - what the kids do. PJ, a 60ish partner in a firm I once worked in, told a story once about how he and his wife "reconnected" during a vacation abroad a few weeks prior. "I got it all back in action. I hadn't heard the headboard slam the wall like that since college."
Jesus, PJ, I've seen you in a locker room at the gym. You've got bigger tits than your wife. And she's got a fucking beard!
The other offender in this category is the 40ish young partner who's feeling trapped in the early stages of a mid life crisis. "Ted" feels his virility ebbing and wants to remember the stud he believes he once was. This offender awkwardly works the latest vanilla sexual conquest into the conversation. "I miss anything this morning? Kimmy surprised me... Know what I mean? Missed the early meeting, but it was worth it." Whenever I've heard this spiel, I've wished the offender didn't know me. I wanted to snap off, "Whoa, I hear ya there, Ted. I woke up this morning and got a fantastic blow job myself. Does Kim swallow, because Lance... he fucking swallows." That'll teach Ted to run around talking about his wife's pussy.
But of all these mental rapists, the very worst is the Newspaper Guy. Newspaper Guy isn't the guy who sneaks into the men's room with a magazine to squirt out a painful, acidic beer shit while sweating out dry heaves from the previous night's indulgence. Newspaper Guy is the chipper prick who marches down the hall to the men's room every morning, offering a cheery hello to everyone he sees on the way with a newspaper folded prominently under his arm. He's effectively saying to everyone he passes, "Hey! Great to see you! Right now, a huge fecal loaf is pushing against the sides of my bowel! I'm going to walk into the men's room, open the stall, open the paper, fart a few times, read some articles, strain, moan, and then christen a chocolate submarine!"
Good morning, Bob! Enjoy the long shit. Hope it's a smoothy! Don't wipe too hard!
I've been videotaped having sex. I've been to nude beaches. I've had rectal exams administered by female doctors. I'm not shy. It's all been seen before. If you think your equipment is sacred, get over yourself. There are 5 or 6 billion people carrying exactly the same apparati. But I have never, will never, could never even fathom, allowing someone to see or hear me defecate. When I have to do so at the office, I search, or I wait, for an empty men's room. I'll wander for 20 minutes looking for one. If you come in and use the urinal while I'm in a stall, I will become deadly quiet, and I will not make a sound until you leave. If I've just closed the stall and someone stomps in and gets in the stall next to me, I'll pretend I'm done, flush and leave. The only thing worse than the thought of having someone hear me drop the kids off at the pool is listening to someone else do it.
I also work quickly. I'm in. I'm done. I'm gone. I don't adjust my pants thirty times in front of the mirror. When I emerge from the stall, I head straight to the sink, wash and get the fuck out of there. Why anyone would want to make a production of any activity taking place in a room full of piss and shit receptacles baffles me. It's the last place on the planet I'd like to spend any extended period of time. I'd sooner go to a Billy Joel concert.
The Newspaper Guy makes an art of excrement. He'll proudly display the paper as he enters the men's room, advising everyone present of his intention, lest they think he might just be paying a casual visit to the urinal. Next, he looks over the stalls, decides which one is most appealing, and then begins The Ritual. First is the arduous process of removing the pants, which have more buckles, zippers and fasteners than the average piece of luggage. Removing a suit of armor makes less noise. Then comes the opening of the newspaper, which he shakes repeatedly, as though he were struggling to read it on some windy street corner. Next are the coughs, which he hopes will drown out the sound of his string of loose, greasy farts and high pressure piss spray hitting the side of the bowl. Finally, you hear the inevitable plop(s) of the fecal loaf/loaves into the water.
You only get the cough if he's polite. Some sit silently and have you to listen to whole piece uninterrupted, leaving you with the maddening curiosity - "Was that sub big enough to cause a stream of water to splash up and hit him in the ass?" The worst will talk to you during the process:
"Hey, did you hear about the Fletcher decision?"
" Uh... no. No... I, uh, hadn't."
"Well, the... (grunt, pause)... judge really.... uhhhhh (grunt)... nailed them."
"Great... great."
The dialogue is almost like play by play. You know when all the action's happening. But it's lousy play by play; you wish Keith Jackson were behind the bowl... "He's going for it. Oh, he's scrambling out of the pocket. Oh my, oh my he's... ohhh... that's going to hurt. Cut in half just before the first down. There's going to be an awwwful lot of wiping there."
Cue the sound of the toilet paper being pulled from the roll and wadded in his hands. Thankfully, the flush usually covers the sound of the wiping.
Newspaper Guys are often long married or the most troll-like of "Men's Men." No single man with any sense passes an army of female coworkers every morning advertising the punctuality of his colon. A single man is still attuned to what's considered attractive and what's not. He knows women are detail processing machines - that they spy the newspaper under the arm and immediately think about the carrier straining out a dump. Not an attractive image.
It's not the shitting that's unattractive - it's the Celebration of the Shit. Shitting's a daily exercise, one of the few things Katie Couric, the Dali Lamma and Chester the Janitor with the 1000 Yard Stare all did yesterday. It's a great equalizer of sorts, reminding us that, as Dylan noted, "even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." And take a shit. But it's no one's greatest moment. If shitting's important enough to justify a ritual, you need a hobby. If it's long enough that you can finish a meaningful newspaper article, you need a colonoscopy. If you just enjoy sitting there - if a hotbox of stale farts and acrid urine fumes provides an escape - you need a therapist.
The married Newspaper Guys forgot years ago that not every woman is their wife. They assume all women are as familiar with and acclimated to their bathroom habits as their wife. The Men's Men seem to think the newspaper-under-arm strut fits into a continuum of what they perceive to be, or have been informed by sitcoms, is manly behavior. These are the same men who almost exclusively discuss steak joints, strip clubs, cigars, single malts and, when they get old, golf. I love steak, whiskey and strip clubs, but I never understood these bullshit Men's Men. Really, who the fuck wants to be a "Man's Man"? Literally taken, the words mean "owned by a man." If I wanted that, I'd go to prison. But this analysis is all just mental masturbation. The rare, pure, archetypal Man's Man is just a guy who can't get laid. He's joined the male nunnery. It meets nightly starting at 8:00 at Schooner's Wings and Ale.
Whatever man you are, the very last thing you want to do to any woman, be she a possible one night stand, your future wife or a mere coworker, is make her think about what you look like squeezing out a cobra. Next time you reach for that copy of the Journal as you head off to the bathroom, think again. Would you pass out Polaroids of yourself sitting on the bowl, your skid marked boxers hanging around your chicken legs and brown ankle socks? That's exactly what you'll be doing if you pick up that paper.
Posted by PhilaLawyer at 10:51 PM