Not the Doctor's Office Waiting Room

I don�t want to earn the reputation of a bathroom monitor, but like Mary Lou Retton has stepped up to the plate in order to champion the cause of overactive bladders everywhere, I must put my fears aside and discuss an important issue: reading in the bathroom. Most people have very strong feelings about bathroom reading. Some think it is never okay to read in the bathroom; others think it�s fine as long as you�re at home. Some think it is acceptable to read in the bathroom at a friend�s house but not at a grandparent�s house. Some people think it is perfectly fine to read in any bathroom. These are the people that most concern me.

For some inexplicable reason, there is a magazine rack attached to one of the bathroom stalls at my workplace. This magazine rack has managed to stay empty for at least three-and-a-half peaceful years. That is, until a bathroom reader decided to declare war upon her fellow employees. About six months ago, someone put a book in the magazine rack. It was a short story collection written by Indian women. It bothered me that the book appeared�a black spot on an otherwise unblemished empty-rack, no-reading-material-present record. But I said nothing. Even when I noticed that someone was reading this book, dog-earing the pages to save her place, I said nothing. Someone moved the book to a bookshelf in the hallway. When it reappeared in the bathroom, I said nothing.

Just when I was beginning to succeed in ignoring the book in the bathroom, another book appeared. The second book, Star Trek Visions of Law and Justice, taunted everyone. It was a direct attack against the nonbathroom-reading employees. It was an assault on not only our dignity but our intelligence. STAR TREK, people. Need I say more?

Here is my big complaint about bathroom reading in the workplace. You know damn well that no one reads a book while they�re peeing. So, the conclusion is that someone feels so confident in her behavior that she takes her time in the restroom, reads chapter 2 in its entirety, wipes, and [here�s the important part] replaces the book before washing her hands. The book in the bathroom is contaminated. Don�t touch it. And, for God�s sake, don�t read it!

When the second book appeared, I couldn�t maintain my silence. I had to discuss it with my office mate, who agreed that the whole reading-in-the-bathroom-at-work bit is a vile, barbaric activity. Discussions took place, guesses were made as to the identity of the bathroom reader, and no one came forward to claim the books. They remained in the magazine rack, new pages being dog-eared to hold the place of the defiant reader. I mean, if you like a book that much, take a sick day and read it at home. Really.

The straw that broke the editor�s back? Only a month later, a third book showed up in the magazine rack. It was a Dr. Drew (of Loveline fame) book on difficult patients, and so on. It was nearly a self-help book. Now the short story collection was bothersome, but the content of the book didn�t offend me. The books that came after were an offense due to their location and their subject matter. (For the record: My hatred for science fiction books, with rare exceptions, is surpassed only by my hatred of self-help books.) The thought did cross our minds that perhaps the bathroom reader was also the phantom shitter. There�s no valid link between the two unless you consider a general disregard for etiquette.

Listen to me. Listen especially closely if you�re prone to bathroom reading. There is a time and a place for these things. Let that place be your own bathroom. Let that place be a solitary log in the middle of the wilderness with no one around to witness you reading and crapping at the same time. For the sake of your own professional career, do not let that place be a bathroom stall where you work. Because if anyone recognizes your shoes, you�re in deep, deep, well, you know.