Female Etiquette

Let me highlight ANOTHER facet of how women are so different from men.

I hear horror stories from guys ABOUT guys in the bathrooms at the office. The non-washing of hands, the phone conversations while on the toilet and so on. I listen with a combination of shock and awe: shock only because, well, us ladies, we do things a bit differently.

Of course, the number one concern is the no-flush. A woman goes in, does her thing and apparently gets so involved in putting her clothes back on that she forgets to flush the toilet OR doesn't allow the check-back look because she's so involved in her Blackberry. Of course, that situation was alleviated with self-flushing toilets, thank the gods.

Now, taking a trip to the ladies room, I was self-involved in Twittering about some nonsense and checking my email for some items. In sitting there, another lady walked in and slipped into the stall next to me. The only reason why she knew I was in there was because she tried the handle and found it locked. Great. Now that I've been discovered, the timer starts to when I need to evacuate before she thinks that I'm doing something... fiendish.  But, this time, to prove a quick theory, I stayed around to see what would happen.

I noticed that she didn't perform her duties immediately. She sat patiently and waited for the bathroom to clear before she could move forward. Two other ladies came in, jostling my stall handle, then hers and landing finally in the handicap stall at the end. She came in and noisily did what she had to do-- what sounded like adjusting the straps on a papertowel dress with one arm tied behind her back, while hopping on one leg and mouthing the words of the star spangled banner. While performing her one-man-band show, another lady came in and fell right into the first stall. She quickly, and quietly performed her master duties, washed her hands and left.

My legs began to go numb as I wanted to spice things up a bit-- as The Last Staller emerged from her lair and The First Staller had just left, I opened and closed my stall door to see if The Second Staller was going to hear and make her move. I quietly put down my cell phone and waited. Just a few seconds after The Last Staller leaves, there was finally movement in the next stall. Two minutes later she was done, washed and left.

So, therefore I concluded, that women do not like to perform in any sort of public, seen or unseen. Men, on the other hand, are not ashamed of their performances. Even to the point of having reviews and writeups of the episodes experienced where so many co-workers meet.