UPS is NOT a Delivery Service

While sitting in class, the fluorescent lights overhead beat down on me making me more uncomfortable than I already am, considering I have to use the restroom very badly. Only minutes are left until class is over, but the ticking of the clock incessantly pounds into my head and drives me berserk while reminding me that he, the clock, is in control of time. Sometimes, I can see his menacing hands shaking their fist at me, mocking me, telling me that at any moment they can turn back time just to further irritate me. “Now next week class, we will begin the chapter on Civil War and discuss Bleeding Kansas...” the teacher explains preten- tiously, while my mind is obviously concentrated more on the civil war presently fighting inside of my bladder.

Finally, the teacher dismisses us, and I rush past my fellow students at a gazelle-like pace similar to a trot, not too eager to allow my peers to know how badly I have to use the restroom. Finally, the door is in sight, but alas, someone calls out, “Hey Markee!”

I groan, knowing that I was only inches away from delivering the Gettysburg Address: Four score and seven minutes ago, my father brought forth to me a soda, conceived in thirst, and dedicated to the proposition that I would have to go pee.

So, I turn quickly to see the intruder who is preventing me from delivering my speech. Recognizing someone I barely know greeting me, I stammer, “Uh...hi, there you,” temporarily forgetting her name.

She is a tall blond with highlights and a beautiful smile, but I am more concerned with the speech still brewing inside my gastrointestinal region. Every moment which passes the words bang louder and louder in my head, “Now we are engaged in a great civil floor, testing whether that pee or any pee so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”

Of course it cannot endure, I’m bound to explode, and I need to get Abraham Lincoln off my mind. So I curtly smile and focus on the Evian bottle she holds in her hand. History not only repeats itself, it is now mocking my efforts to use the facilities and is shouting threats to wet my pants. This cannot be happening, I think to myself, so I blink forcefully, smile grudgingly and say, “Hey, um, I’ll talk to you later, I got class shortly. See ya’ round.”

Finally, I make it to my destination—well not quite—because on the door to the little boy’s room a sign blocks the doorway which reads: Sorry, Closed for cleaning.

Making up new curses and ways to bring Lincoln back from the dead so I can shoot him again for mocking me for the third time in a row, I make my way to the stair case. Soaring down the stairs I land on the bottom floor with a tremendous thud that shakes my bladder, threatening to explode and leak out from places I dare not dream of. I find the nearest unclosed restroom and make my way into the small stall, almost slipping with anxiety.

After all my strength of holding back slanderous slurs and new innovative ways to kill presidents who have already past away, I unzip my pants and allow gravity to do its work. “Hey, buddy. You mind throwing over some TP,” the stall next door asks?

“Arrrgh,” I think as the next stall attempts to impede my flow. “Sure thing buck-o,” I say, as I maliciously fling the toilet paper over the stall, leaving a comet tail that flutters gracefully down, landing gently against the partition wall.

“Thanks,” he says, a little flabbergasted from my unpleasant pyrotechnics and ability to TP a stall.

After I TPed the stranger, I finished up my own business, and tried to rush out before I have to confront the unidentified peeing stranger (or UPS) in the stall juxtaposed to mine. First and foremost, if someone needs to do a number two, he should always check beforehand to make sure there is an adequate supply of toilet paper before he starts what nature had intended. Even better yet, more importantly, he should save his number two’s for his own home. There is nothing more embarrassing and more awkward than the phantom farts which follow a tremendous poo erupting from one’s buttocks. What’s worse than the phantom farts are the splashes one must hear accompaning the farts, and even more disturbing is the wretched smell that is left lingering in the air. Warning signs which say: Enter at Your Own Risk, should be posted allowing visitors to understand the potential hazard upon entering. I can imagine the staff aware of these potential dangerous situations and calling the HazMat team equipped with Chemsuits to rectify the SHITuation. “Uh, yeah we got ourselves here a code six on level two, sector four.”

The radio would crackle and respond, “A code six? That’s lethal methane you realize. No way! We cannot risk any men for that operation, call the coast guard, or the president, that some serious shit! Honestly? A code six?”

The CB radio would respond, “Affirmative, code six, phantom farts and everything!”

Bathroom etiquette should always be observed while using public facilities. Once, I walked into a restroom and a UPS had his hand gently placed on the wall of a urinal as if he needed support to relieve his urination, or even more grotesque and disturbing was the fact that he had the audacity to scratch his butt with the other free hand. I would hate being in that guy’s place, knowing that any moment I could be scandalously discovered with my hand alleviating a scratch to be itched, and my hand gently caressing the unsanitary bathroom wall.

Another instance—I tend to use the restroom frequently, but that is expected—I found another UPS singing. This guy wore a red hoodie so his face was completely hidden and he was singing a song as if to coax the urine out of his body, which wasn’t soothing to the other passengers riding this not-so-enjoyable ride.

Even more irritating is hearing a conversation on a cell phone. I can recall one instance where a man had an entirely private conversation with his wife, “I know honey, things will get better, I promise. When I get home, we’ll make love tonight.”

First of all—dare I state the obvious—this conversation is not bathroom appropriate nor is it suitable for a public establishment. This happened in a McDonald’s public restroom while I was working and taking a quick bathroom break while washing my hands. Unwillingly hearing this one-sided conversation, I observed inaudible yelling on the other end of the phone (my face turned bright red as I quickly exited the bathroom and returned to work).

There are two sacred places that should be held in reverence: a church and a public bathroom. Bathrooms should be like churches: silent and without any distractions. At a church, if a baby becomes unruly, the parents are asked to escort their children to the lobby or cry room. Not all churches are the same though; I can vividly foresee a charismatic, African-American church congregation meeting me outside of a partition, and saying to me: Praise Jesus, thank you for your donations. Therefore, a bathroom should be more of a reverent church, where you silently sit down in your pew, bow your head, take care of the “God” thing, drink some wine, give up your offering, and leave. Prayer is silent, so should your ability to pee.

There are many other culprits in men’s bathroom’s which should be addressed as well: There are the “miss-shooters” who miss the toilet entirely and pee on their shoe—or even worse, my shoe. Conversational types like to hold a normal conversation while you pee, but there is no need for these loquacious UPS’s to tell me about their day nor their relationship problems; I simply don’t care. I care about my need to excrete bodily fluids, and do not wish to loiter around to finish their in depth conversations or about their inability to pee in silence.

While restrooming at a Target, I walked into a yet another prepos- terous scene: an UPS was standing at the urinal with his pants completely down to his ankles revealing his buttocks, full moon rising from the dark to say hello to me. All I hoped was that he wasn’t a combination of his own unique weirdness and a miss-shooter, for if he was, I can imagine him missing completely and leaking all over his sneakers, and then tripping and falling onto the hard ceramic urinal. I cannot imagine the story he would have had to tell his wife, how he got his laceration on his forehead. “You see honey...” he would begin, “I ignored the restroom etiquette and mores. I was peeing all willy-nilly,” no pun intended.

So, naturally I would be quite upset at these restroom infractions which make it nearly impossible to pee without some bizarre form of bathroom etiquette being ignored. These rules are unwritten, but I believe wholeheartedly that there should be some form of punishment, sanction or incarceration available to offenders. There should be a position available to protect silent-pee-er’s everywhere, and to ensure that these infractions are punished to the fullest extent of the law. We will call on the PeePee Police anytime we feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. The slightest mistake would involve a full fledged investigation, and their punishment should involve a visit to the Restroom Reform School.

So you can imagine my predicament whenever I am in need of a huge relief. People need to overcome these ridiculous unorthodox rituals or oddities in pubic restrooms. It is called a restroom for a reason, so we can rest. Imagine a free restroom devoid of all unnatural smells, odors or peculiar restroom habits. And should someone feel the need to partake in a totally naked dump, one’s own private restroom should he utilized for this abnormal bathroom behavior from the comfort of their own home. It is all together fitting and proper that we should do this (in silence).