You’ll have to forgive the ironic setting of this story, given the topic. But it happened just this way. Really. Would I lie to you? I mean if no money was involved?
* * *
Today I was by myself in the Ladies Room, minding my own business in my little gray stall. OK, so I was doing my own business in my little gray stall, when the door opened and another woman walked in. I couldn’t see her. In fact, thankfully, I never saw her.
She hadn’t taken two steps into the bathroom when her cell phone rang.
Sometimes, you really should just let it go to voice mail.
This is what I heard from my, ummm, perch.
“Hello?”
…
“Speaking.”
…
“What were the results?”
Now I’ve had enough calls like this to know that she was talking with someone from her doctor’s office. I cleared my throat to let her know that someone else was in the house. Loudly. I tapped my feet. (I did not, however, cop a wide stance as I wasn’t in Minneapolis.)
… … …
“Oh, do I have to take anything for that?”
…. … … …
“You mean I have to go back and tell my partners?”
I coughed. Loudly. I thought about starting to sing.
… … … …
“How many do you think I need to tell?”
…
“Can you figure out who I got it from?”
At this point, I DID start to sing, loudly:
And with that sound, finally, the tone-deaf woman realized that there was someone else in the bathroom, and perhaps this wasn’t the best place to discuss her newly diagnosed Sexually Transmitted Disease.
But you know this whole thing made me realize that folks just don’t understand true cell phone etiquette:
If you let me listen to the start of the call, I get to hear the finale.
FiftyFourandAHalf 
Maybe they should start making cell phones with a Cone of Silence app from Get Smart.
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Wouldn’t that be great? Of course, we’d all have to use shoe phones!
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EEEEEUUUUUW! 😦 Loved “notquiteold’s” comment. People say the darndest things.
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I agree!
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I just recalled an … interesting … cell phone experience. I’m waiting to turn left at a traffic light, guy to my right is SCREAMING into his phone. Yep – I hear him through his closed window, through my closed window, and over the tunes I’m playing. My turn arrow is about to come on, but I’m not about to move, ’cause I know what’s gonna happen. Guy across the street starts to turn left, idiot to my right NAILS the throttle, stops just short of left-turning guy, and – yes – starts screaming at turn guy WHILE STILL SCREAMING AT HIS PHONE! Once I was sure I wasn’t gonna be collateral damage, I got the heck out of there, leaving idiot boy sitting in the middle of the intersection screaming at … well … pretty much everybody.
More entertaining, but nowhere near as close as the jackass in the BMW who neglected to notice traffic had stopped, and came sliding at my rear, one hand on his phone, the other reaching across him to his coffee. “Look ma, no hands.” And no brains….
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They are a mixed blessing, that’s for sure. Me, I use an earpiece so people think I’m schizophrenic and get out of my way.
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Remember the Cell Phony? Back in the days of the “brick” (the early 1980s Motorolas), they sold a lightweight plastic look-alike. I think they have a modern equivalent, so you can talk to yourself in public with no fear of embarrassment. Me, I don’t need one – I gave up on a sense of embarrassment years ago…..
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me too, John. Me too.
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I’m against public cell phone converations ever since jackass-having-an-over-the-phone-shouting-match-in-a-crowded-dunkin-donuts.
Some things just shouldn’t be done.
So, did her conversation interfere with your…business?
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How could anybody ever fight when the prospect of tasty donuts looms?
Nothing keeps me from my appointed or unappointed rounds, Guap. Not nobody, not no how.
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If someone is in the stall talking, I purposefully go around and flush as many things as possible….
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Great strategy.
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I doscovered…quite by accident…I can have the entire bathroom to myself if I just leave my stall door open and talk to myself while I’m doing my business. No one seems to want to come in for some reason.
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I never thought of that!
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You’re nicer than I, Elyse. i would’ve listened to the whole thing for blog fodder. And maybe chuckled a bit, too.
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Good thing I didn’t use it for a blog. I’m polishing my halo now.
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I mean, I would’ve wanted the WHOLE story…
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Hahahaha. ….
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Yeah. As long as she doesn’t sit on the seat …
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Very true. I just loved the fact that she didn’t really care if anyone else heard.
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Didn’t care or didn’t realize that it might be inappropriate. I go with the latter.
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I would have started with random comments. Wouldn’t have been able to stop them either.
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Farting on cue would have been good, too! Alas, that never happens when I want it to.
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Burping yes, being flatulent, never comes when it’s called for. That whole pull my finger has eluded me.
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I think that the real skill is not farting, personally. I mean, not that I ever have.
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lol. Can you imagine how sick someone might be if they didnt?
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Some people. But what was I gonna do? It was an important call.
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You can’t fool me, Darla. She said “partners” not “Pahtners.” No Maine accent. And if you and I had been together in the bathroom we would have been laughing way to hard to notice Little Miss STD.
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Poor you. Not a good experience
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A pretty weird one, I grant you, Ducks!
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How inconsiderate of her not to let you share her conversation!
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Wasn’t it, Benze? Sheesh!
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I bet that the woman with the cell phone must have been thinking something like, “how rude of her to sing in the bathroom and interrupt somebody’s private conversation.”
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It was rude of me. I tried hard not to make noise other than my singing, though. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to hear.
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There is just to much of an ick factor with this one.
How many? Really?
Wide stance, love this line. You kill me.
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I never want to kill you, Val! But yeah, it was quite yucky. I’m pretty sure she was a temp though, so I won’t be reporting on any additional details of her life.
I hope.
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It’s amazing to me that people have no sense of how much they are “sharing” on their cell phones. Ick.
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I think they are so used to having everything “out” there. But an STD? Oy.
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Oh my. Michelle is right……as it is with the phone, so it is with her partners :-),
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Michelle is a smart woman. As are you!
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Holy moley. What is wrong with people? I’ve heard many women having cell phone conversations while they’re on the toilet, which is bad enough, but to have THAT sort of talk in public? And seriously, if she was stupid enough to start the convo in public, she absolutely should be forced to finish it in public so that you can get the payoff. It’s only fair. Did you get a look at her?
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Yes, you do have to wonder about some people, don’t you? I mean really, let it go to voice mail.
I did not get a look at her, and I’m glad. I think she was a temp at the company that shares our office floor. Hopefully, she’s gone.
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I don’t understand why people are on their phones in the bathroom. Who wants to hear other people peeing and performing other bodily functions during their conversation.
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We should all stick to texting on the toilet 😉
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How many of them? You should have piped up: “How many of them are there?” That would have cleared her out quickly.
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That would have been hilarious. Or, if there were other women present I could have shouted “If you’ve give that to me ….” The choices are endlessly amusing!
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Now you’re hoping it happens again, aren’t you?
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Now that you mention it … It might be fun!
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Wonderful post! Just returning to the States after 3 yrs in a country where the language was Greek to me (well, it was Greek to everyone, it was Cyprus) I feel like I have the ability to mind read as I can effortlessly listen in to strangers’ conversations while waiting on the corner for the light to change, or sitting at a bar. The over-share is incredible (probably amplified by being in NYC), but I still have to resist going up to people, tugging at their sleeve, and asking them, “Did you know you just said that out loud? And in English? And I can understand you?”
So far the only exception to this being annoying was on Amtrak. As the train left the station the person in the seat in front of me pulled out their phone and started a loud conversation. I was silently cursing not being in the “quiet car” when the person said, “So then I came home and found her in my dining room. Of course I took out a restraining order!” I leaned forward and enjoyed the rest of the ride.
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What a story!
Welcome back. I know what it’s like being overseas surrounded by people not speaking English. I lived in Geneva for 5 years. My French still. Ummmm sucks!
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Let’s toss it the other way. She’s on the private call in the bathroom, and then you walk in having to go …. would she ask you to leave?
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Nobody stops me Frank! Still answering a phone is not (or not yet) a biological necessity!
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… and there’s the answer I expected!
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Glad I didn’t disappoint, Frank!
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And if there was ever a time to let a call go to voicemail, that was one of them!
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Absolutely! If I were waiting for results from such a test — and for the record I AM NOT! — I think I’d be pretty damn careful that nobody else was listening.
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Unfortunately, people have gotten so use to using their cell phones that they seem to think public places are their private domains. I have them look at me as though I should leave the space I was in first so they can have privacy in public. Your last statement sums it up. If you include me in the beginning, might as well make it a three-way conversation. Although in this case, you might have better off not knowing.
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Actually, I think I’m best off not knowing who she was!
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I’m really glad you made it clear, at the start of this post, that you were in the still doing your business. I think the only thing worse than the “in-the-can” conversations is when you go in with somebody already in a stall, take care of all your business, exit the stall, wash, and re-arrange the clothing, and the person it STILL IN THERE! I’m convinced one of my co-workers at Citicorp was running a business out of one of the stalls. What business that was, I was never bored enough to consider. 😀
You know, I just thought of something. They used to offer a cell-phone jammer you could mount in your car, supposedly to keep the kiddies from motor-mouthing while driving. I wonder if there are any left on eBay….
(Oh, it’d be a present for you. Me, I live in an EM black hole. Look at any cell-phone company’s service-coverage map. See that blank spot just east of Columbus? See me waving? 😉 )
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Do you see me waving back?
Glad you’re feeling up to crazy comment stalking again, John!
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I’m still stuck on “how many do I need to tell?”. What kind of answer was she expecting? “Well, ideally you should tell all of them, but I know you’re busy, so just tell the last three and we’ll call it even.”
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She was a contentious young thing, wasn’t she!
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Wow!
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Yup. Remind the girls that walls have ears!
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Could you tell how young/old she was? I think different generations have different standards or thresholds for privacy. If she was born in the generation brought up with cell phones and all forms of gadgets for social media, the boundaries for privacy (hers and yours) are pretty porous. Those of us who are Baby Boomers and still remember the Cold War paranoia and the fear of Big Brother watching all of us, well, we hold our privacy a bit more sacred.
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She sounded pretty young, and yes, I think you’re right. Youngin’s are so used to having everything about them online, what’s a phone conversation about an STD? Oy!
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Wow. That is some serious EWWWW factor.
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Yup!
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Wow. Nothing like a little bathroom theater to keep you entertained. Gross. By the way: “I did not, however, cop a wide stance as I wasn’t in Minneapolis.”—Hahahaha!
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I personally prefer a dull bathroom!
I’m delighted that folks got that joke. Not surprised, but pleased.
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Hearing people talk on the phone in a public restroom always makes me feel so strange. I start flushing the toilet numerous times in the hopes that the person on the other side of the line will hear it and ask, “where are you?”
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I agree — I mean we really need to be able to be disconnected sometime.
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Here’s my oddest bathroom moment (from 10 years ago):
At the office – someone walks in while I am in the stall.
“Who’s in here?” she asks.
“Me. Nancy,” I respond.
“Oh never mind,” she says.
“What did you want?”
“I was looking for someone who would have a tampon.”
“No problem,” I say. “I do.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
“That’s so depressing.”
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!!!
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haha!
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Just be thankful you got to the bathroom first and didn’t inadvertently occupy HER stall after she had used it. Ew. I need to go wash my hands now.
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That was my thought too. Fortunately, her voice wasn’t familiar. She may have been a visitor to the other office on my floor. I hope so!
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I was thinking the same thing.
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Pass the soap, please.
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Heh @ wide stance/Minneapolis.
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I couldn’t resist!
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Oh, yes, sometimes you should just let it go to voicemail. Honestly, I didn’t think that kind of thing was told over the phone. Obviously she is as carefree with her phone calls as she is with her partners.
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Well said, Michelle!
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