Restroom Tactics

There are some things that a human-being learns intuitively. How to walk, how to smile, how to form spitballs that land plop in the middle of the bald guy’s head, how to drink Coke in the most annoying way possible and how to always blame someone else when anything goes wrong.

There aren’t any instruction manuals for any of the above mentioned things. A lot of things in life can come quite naturally as a follow-through of Darwin’s Theory. For example, it isn’t hard to imagine that when the caveman screamed that his wife was pregnant and that he wasn’t the father, his neighbor screamed “Grunt .. gkly rfooot” which would be later deciphered by historians to mean “Ummm.. Wasn’t me?”.

But ponder, if you will, on those who for some reason or the other, do not manage to … “intuit”. Imagine how his life would be – when he came home and his wife told him that she had a headache, he would actually believe her! I feel that such people live as ignorantly a life as bee stuck in the lowest branch of a tree in the Amazon forest. I wish to rectify that. And that mission starts with this post.

How many times have we (men) walked into a restroom to relieve ourselves and found in front of us a complicated problem. 5 urinal booths and an arbitrary scattering of people using them. On any normal day, we would have relished solving the puzzle. We would have chewed on our pencil a bit, done a Google search, called up a few friends, talked about it and arrived at a sane, logical conclusion.

Unfortunately, it is time for my punch dialogue -

“When yenny won calls, you can yignoru da,

But nature calling-na, appo you wonly answer da”

Well, this post is my humble effort to take you through the most common situations that one is confronted with when entering the men’s room. The only assumption is that when you enter, you want to go.

Situation 1: Lone Ranger

When you see a lone ranger standing, the perfect stall is always at his opposite end.

Opposite end of the line of the stall that is.

In this case, that would be Stall 1

Situation 2: Wrong Number

A guy doing #1 in #2, just doesn’t seem right. When ever you see him, ask yourself, WWTGGD – What would the gay guy do?

Then choose the stall that is farthest from the answer. In this case, you would go to Stall 5.

Situation 3: Open House

Of all the scenarios and decisions, I have good-se-good people, toilet veterans even, falter when they see the dreaded Open House. Though very innocuous, the myriad combination of possibilities is mind-boggling. With all the body and brain working at maximum efficiency on bladder control, it is veritably impossible to assemble troops in the end to ponder on this problem. Medics have rushed to find men paralyzed. In their report, they would mention cryptically scribble OH in the corner.

Have no fear, the answer is quite simple. The magic rule to remember is “Go to the end of the house”.

Ideally, 1 and 5 are better. But since people usually walk-in and pick the stall closest to them, you should pick the one furthest from the entrance. If the entrance was near 1, then you should pick 5.

Situation 4: The Twin Showers

This one is the most easy. When you are accosted by the Twin Showers, bisect. Stall number 3 has got your name written all over it.

Situation 5: The Confunder

When the going gets tough, the tough pees in its pants. Now the situation is a little more tricky. It easy to see what happened here. Mr. 5 came and saw an Open House and took the 5th stall (D-uh!). He assumed that when someone else walked in, they would see the Lone Ranger and walk to Stall 1. But he had not anticipated this guy, who decided to break the monotony of the natural order of things and stand in Stall 2. When you walked in, you found him – the Confounder, daring you with his backside to pick the right stall.

The answer is Stall 1. The guy at Stall 2 may be The Confounder but you can be sure that he is no Superman. As the old saying goes, it never rains forever. He will have to make a move sooner or later, and when he does, the Twin Showers balance would be restored.

Situation 6: W2O1

We-Two-Ours-One pattern is most common in cinema theatre restrooms. It follows no order and works on the principles of random distribution. When you see this situation, sing this song in your head

“We-Two-Ours-One// go to the daughter or the son.”

Stall 5 is where you shall see a man about a dog.

Situation 7: Rock On

I’m sure you can figure out why it’s called Rock On formation. When you do it in your right hand, you will see why. Going with the hand, you must ask yourself, other than this hand symbol, what other hand/finger symbol, would you be most likely yo receive from someone coming out a rock concert.

Correct answer. Please proceed to Stall 3.

Situation 8: Penalty Shoot-Out

Simply go and take your place. 5 is not a bad spot, as there is a 25% probability that 4 will leave and you can play aqua sports in peace.

Situation 9: The Missing Tooth

When you see the missing tooth, your options are very very simple

a. Think of nice beautiful place that has no waterfalls, fountains, springs, etc. Keep that picture in your head for a while.

b. Find a fire-alarm switch and hit it.

c. Check the ladies’ room

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Think about it:-

One of the most awkward things that can happen in a pub is when your pint-to-toilet cycle gets synchronized with a complete stranger.

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Related Reading:-

Toilet Vs. Bathroom

The Art of War