CELLPHONES AND BATHROOMS

People who use their cell phones in bathrooms!!!!!

Well I didn’t know they existed but they do. People who take their cell phones to the bathroom with them do exist. They live and breathe amongst us. They are our very family members and friends.

And I wouldn’t have noticed it if a certain male friend didn’t come out of the bathroom with his phone in his hands, his eyes glued to the screen just as they were when he had left for the bathroom fifteen minutes ago. I realized this was a yucky human. I realized his phone was probably infected. I realized it must be more fun to be with the phone inside, relieving ourselves of our bladder and bowel load while scrolling through social media.

He came out and looked like he had washed his hands after his most precarious business. But what about the phone? The phone was in there too. Did he wash that? I mean no one washes the phone. Phone is practically self-cleaning. The only time we truly clean it is when our kid sneezes on it with a mouthful of cereal while watching cartoons on it and eating breakfast.

But who washes it when they’ve been with it in the bathroom? No one. So basically these are all bacteria-infested phones with pretty little worms to keep them company in the more shady crevices of a phone.

What struck me as insane was why take the phone in there and not concentrate on pooping which can be quite a job. I mean is it so easy for him to poop that he doesn’t even need to make a conscious effort to do so? Lucky guy! May be I have been constipated for so long that I’ve had a complete perspective shift. My bowel habits require a carefully regimented, institution-approved plan that focuses on routine and peace. Without those two, I can’t be enticed into the poop-making and poop-breaking business.

I wondered initially what he took that phone in for. I won’t lie but my mind did go to some sexual things. May be he wanted to masturbate. I rejected that idea immediately. The bathroom in question is so small, dingy and stuffy that you can’t possibly make room for an orgasm.

Did he take it in to keep himself company? Well, that seemed plausible. Bathroom is a place where everyone has to entertain themselves. There’s no two-person relationship while a human engages in bathroom activities. It’s all individual. It’s all a one-man show. My friend is a friendly and lively person. May be he needs to keep his friendliness and liveliness stoked all the time in order for it to not go out.

Then I considered other possibilities. May be he is a secret service agent and requires the type of privacy to message his boss that only a bathroom can afford him. May be the quiet in there, interrupted only by a tinkle or a thud, is what is so essential to his job. May be the dark in there works to wake some secret-agenty ideas in him.

May be he is texting someone I shouldn’t know about. He isn’t talking to someone or I would’ve heard him. He is quietly attending to his business or businesses.

He is quite a diligent fellow so another thought occurred. May be likes to be productive every second of his life. Sitting idly on the toilet seat, whiling his time away, is probably not a savory idea to him. That’s like fifteen minutes of lost time to diligent people. I found a new respect for him. I actually started to look up to him and made a mental list of things that I could be doing on my phone.

But all these thoughts evaporated when at the end of our meeting he stuck his hand out to shake mine. All thoughts of disgusting fomites on that hand came rushing to the front of my brain. I started to feel disgusted by this open choice of taking the phone in the bathroom, then not sanitizing it when coming out and taking liberty to keep touching it throughout our conversation and ultimately finding no objection in shaking my hand with the same hand that had been holding that phone.

That I couldn’t do. Diligent, secret agent, lively and friendly he may be, but the nasty hand that was holding his infected phone was the last thing I wanted to touch. So I took my phone out, made it look like I had suddenly received a very important call and shook my hand at him from a distance as I fast exited from the restaurant.