My sister was crinkling paper during our recent phone call, and I inquired about her activity. “I’m getting ready to have a cinnamon-raison bagel,” she said. She was wrestling the paper wrapping from the bagel, which was the noise that I heard. We exchanged information about our younger brother, who is hospitalized, and as the conversation ranged beyond that immediate concern, I heard banging and slamming in the background. My sister noted to me that she was one who could multi-task during a phone call. She made it sound like an anthem: “I Am Woman, Hear Me Multi-Task.” She also said that one of those tasks was going to the bathroom.
A male friend of my sister’s once asked her, “Why do all of my female friends have to go to the bathroom when I’m on the phone with them?” When I heard that, I cried out, “Amen, brother!” He joins me in wondering about that, for I have the same issue, with my oldest daughter being the primary participant in the tradition. When we are on the phone for an extended period, she will announce: “Dad, I’m in the bathroom.” I know her bathroom, the one off the kitchen, and I recognize the echoing sound when she enters it, and with a sigh, I will say, “I know.”
A good friend of mine often tells me, when we are on the phone to each other, that she is “going to tinkle.” I tell her the same thing I tell my daughter: “I know; I can hear you.” I have spent many good days at this friend’s various houses, and the house that preceded her current one had a bathroom off the kitchen. I deployed the countermeasures I wrote about in “Rude Noises and Smells,” (Weekly View, September 10, 2015). When I told my sister about the sheets of toilet tissue to muffle the contact of urine with the water, she said, “I never thought of that.” I did not scream at her, “That’s because you don’t give a …!” (No, seriously: I did not scream at my sister. Outside of my head.)
When I told my family doctor that the sound of running water makes me want to … water, she told me I might have an overactive bladder. When I attend IndyFringe, Heartland Film, or Indianapolis Repertory Theater events with my friends, I visit the watering stations before, during and after each show. (During, as in during the intermission.) But I never make a loud pronouncement about my pending absence: “Hey! I’m gonna go PEE! Anybody wanna come with?” (This is a behavior that I have noticed within a certain gender demographic. Of course, my companions are usually women, so there’s no chance of co-peeing. In Indianapolis, anyway.)
My youngest granddaughter, who is now, “five and a half: Duh,” used to have a toy flamingo that would eat and sing a song before it eliminated: “Uh, oh, gotta go!” The toy would shiver and shake and drop a dollop. I may have overserved myself on that toy, and still mourn its death. But never once did it announce, “I have to pee!” Of course, it never spent any time on the phone with me either, and I don’t think it was female.
I briefly considered offering some advice to the females out there but realized that it would be far less dangerous for me to set myself ablaze and run into East 10th Street traffic. But ladies, please understand that we men believe in you, and you should know: We hear you.
(Do you smell burning flesh…?)
cjon3acd@att.net