At the school where I teach, there are two staff restrooms. I use the name “restroom” purposely in place of “bathroom,” for I have never taken a bath at school, and fellow teachers understand how a potty break quite often doubles as a wonderfully good time for some R&R. One staff restroom is kind of out in the open in a main hallway where chaos is still to be heard, even with the fan running. The other is nice and out of the way, a place where one can enjoy a break from bewailing students and thus, the desire to take the life of . . . (let me clear my throat). Anyways, there is a intriguing nuance of my behavior that I have discovered by way of another difference between the two.
In one restroom, there is a sink and a single stall. The other has the same equipment, a sink and a toilet; however, there is no stall. The toilet sits in the open beside the sink. Now, here’s the quirky thing: when I use the restroom equipped with a stall, I always lock the bathroom door, enter the stall, and close and latch the stall door. Two locks. Double security. It makes some sense. But when I use the other restroom, I am by no means uneasy with the idea that the only barrier I have between my business-doing self and the outside world is the bolt keeping the restroom door shut. (This is so even in light of a marker-written sign taped to the outside of the door reading, “PLEASE knock before barging in. Thank you!” This warrants some speculation on the whos and whens of the story that made this little warning a necessity.)
Having taken note of this little phenomenon, I made a grown-up decision that it is entirely ridiculous to continue double-locking myself in the stalled restroom. Such a tendency would be described by my college friends as a “barfer move.” No more would I allow paranoia to control me. No more would I sit there wrapped in my shroud of comfort, harvesting the idea that I have taken compulsory measures to ensure that none of my coworkers were going to hacksaw their way through the bolt lock on the restroom door so that he or she could see me sitting there in all of my glory and vulnerability. (Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with my pants on the ground.) It would be the same experience as the restroom without the stall. I’d never complained about a lack of safekeeping there. No need whatsoever to be under the aegis of two locked doors. It was always fine, just fine.
The time arrived to begin my new journey of empowerment. The out-of-the-way restroom, always my first choice, was available, but I had something to prove, so I kept walking. I knocked on the door, and upon silence, confidently swung it open, swaggered in, and threw my hands up in the air, as if to declare my dominance over the silly supports this restroom sought to entrap me in. Gritting my teeth, I nudged open the stall door and strolled over to the toilet. There I was, in the open, battling my preposterous previous notions of susceptibility. Nothing could take me down from my pedestal of puissance. And as I sat there . . . I was sore afraid. Golly gee, I couldn’t take it. With my foot, I slammed the stall door shut, then leaned forward and fastened the latch. Phew, I was safe again.
Why? I don’t know. But it had to be done. And it continues to be done.
Sigh. Linus, I understand.
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