NOT [28/4/22]

You won't believe what this dude told me ...

28/4/22 bryanlsplinter 45

Hello, fellow Deadsplinters. I’m going to be driving the NOT bus for the next few nights, so prepare yourselves. At this time I do not plan any turtle content, but that may change.

So last week I was out drinking and headed into the men’s room, where I became embroiled in a debate. Stay with me, it’s not what you think. The discussion was over the relative merits of Hanna-Barbera cartoons. I correctly identified Jonny Quest as the best Hanna-Barbera cartoon, followed by Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? These are indisputable facts and are only tangential to my discussion here, and the group (none of whom I’ve ever met) bowed to my wisdom and left to pursue drinking.

My point is that I am frequently engaged in conversation in the men’s room, and a lot of it is startlingly personal. I’ve been told about divorces, arrests, family problems, you name it, I’ve probably heard about it in a men’s room. While the immediate conclusion is that I spend too much time in men’s rooms, I’m curious about you.

Does this happen to you? (I mean, use ladies’ room where appropriate.) Is it just me? I often wonder if there’s something about me that encourages true confessions.

So tell me, do you have random encounters in the lavatories? What embarrassing conversations have you had? For that matter, when has somebody confessed something weird, strange, illegal, uncomfortable and entirely unwelcome to you?

Or, y’know, it’s an open thread. Tell me what’s on your mind. The dudes in the bathroom do it all the time.

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45 Comments

  1. What?  Dastardly & Muttley in their Flying Machines is the best!  Johnny Quest was cool but the lip thing was creepy!  They did have the best theme song though so here, have both…

    I was also a big Speed Buggy guy.

    As for restroom conversations.  It is just you!  I find only small talk is appropriate.  Things like “you don’t buy beer, you just lease it”.  Does remind me though of the time I was at a beer festival with a friend and the bathroom was packed, every urinal at full use.  My friend was peeing one urinal away and yells, this guy just pissed on my shoes!  He claimed the guy had a penis piercing and he was peeing both forward and out of that hole on his shoes!  So after he finishes he wants to go fight this guy.  I’m pretty buzzed but not fighting buzzed but was going to defend my friend if he confronted this person until I saw the guy was like 6’5″ 260ish!  He was following the guy yelling at him but the guy was just ignoring him.  I talked him down before the guy might decide it was worth getting kicked out to shut my friend up.  I pretty much told him, I’m willing to fight with you but we are both going to get our asses kicked and no more beer.  That seemed to do the trick.

     

     

    • I trust your drunken ally is not your current beer guy?

      And I’m just going to point out that discussing another man’s penis is indeed personal. In fact, even being adjacent to a penis diatribe puts you firmly in the “restroom conversation” category.

      So it’s not just me.

      PS – You need to sit down with your Dastardly & Muttley nonsense.

  2. He is still my buddy but my “beer guy” rarely goes to beer festivals.  Why should he?  He has every beer he wants at his finger tips & those he doesn’t, he trades with people around the country.  I have only seen him at the Fresh Hop festival where we get VIP passes so get to start drinking an hour before the masses, all you can eat food trucks, and our own less crowded area with bathrooms.  It is also the only festival where every beer there you will never taste again because they are fresh hops with that years crop.  Damn, now I’m thirsty!

     

  3. I always wanted to be the Asian version of Jonny Quest. He had a cool dad, his gay companion (???? I’m also a fan of Harvey Birdman) a good friend (if not racially insensitive, but not as racist as they could have done… so hooray?), a good dog and a bunch of gizmos to play with.

    The theme really sparked the show and the era.

  4. For you it’s men’s bathrooms.  For me it’s hushed convos in empty cubicles.

    I learned things I did not want to know.  For some fucking reason people want to talk to me about their troubles.

    I thought it couldn’t be me because I have a big mouth.  I found out later it’s because I listen (and keep quiet about really bad shit) and refrain from instant judgements or denying their feelings/problems.

    • Well, that makes sense if they know you. Mine are literally complete strangers. I don’t know what I do to make them think I’m a sympathetic ear. But there’s gotta be something.

  5. I once went to a ladies lounge at a fine establishment in Nashville. I was a tiny bit horrified by the overwhelming oversharing that went on in there.

  6. Sorry it’s just you. In fact just this week I was having a conversation with my male boss and a female coworker and at some point the conversation turned to people talking on the phone in bathrooms. My coworker asked if it was acceptable for guys at urinals to talk to each other and we both told her it was a serious breach of urinal etiquette.

  7. Women generally head to the bathroom to have chats with their friends. Maybe it’s a guy thing to unload on a stranger because they are taught to repress their feelings and then alcohol makes them feel less inhibited.

    There was one semester where I would hit up the dive bars (10$ pitchers deals) near campus. I walked in on the same woman peeing at three different locations. Each time, she laughed hysterically as I quickly apologized and shut the door. The door which had a lock that she chose not to use.

  8. I am not one for bathroom discourse but for some reason people at work come to me when their pets die – even some that I barely know. I am not trained in pet grief counseling but I guess it’s because I’ve always had a lot of dogs. People will even call and text me when they’ve suffered a pet death. It can be a little difficult – mainly because it makes me very sad too. Also, I’ve had to hug a lot of them and I am not a hugger.

  9. Hey hey hey

    I want to thank folks for filling in for me.

    I was out of state for a week and I still figured I could do the NOTs that I normally do. I might not be as chatty here but it’s not hard to do a post on my phone.

    Then I got a 5am phone call that my best friend died and honestly folks I was just lost and that’s why I backed out last week. I thought I was doing okay and then I got home from being out of town and then shit was abruptly really real and nope back to not being okay.

  10. I talk to my dog when she pees but I doubt I’ve ever said more than hey to someone at a urinal.

    Although this reminds of a joke.

    Two guys are sitting in the stalls in a two seater bathroom. First guy stands up and flushes and the second guy calls out “Oh no, I need more toilet paper. Can you pass a few sheets under?” First guy says “Sorry, I used up the last sheets too.” Second guy pauses for a second and then says “Do you have change for a five?”

  11. The women’s restroom at bars are always full of drama. I’ve had total strangers weeping about their break ups, confessing their infidelities, and asking my advice on extremely personal decisions. Once at a wedding the bride let it slip that she was faking  her pregnancy. My favorite bathroom encounter was when an extremely drunk group of young women were taking a group photo in the lounge section of the restroom, it was a very nice hotel, and they insisted I be in it even though I didn’t know them at all. I would have loved to have seen them the next day trying to figure out who the hell I was, lol.

    • See, THAT’S what I’m talking about. “I’m divorcing my wife and don’t know what to tell my kids.” I’m like, I just wanted to pee.

      Maybe I’m going into the ladies’ room by accident. Can’t say that’s never happened.

  12. When I lived in Alabama, it was checkout lanes for stores. Like I’d be at a craft store and the lady behind me would start talking about her daughter in law, bless her heart, is a recovering alcoholic, and she likes doing crafts and the family is trying to be supportive. Or someone would tell me all about their gout acting up at the Winn Dixie checkout line.

  14. So I can’t say I have regularly had weird oversharing convos in bar bathrooms, HOWEVER, I definitely have had them. Something about a small, intimate space and inebriation, I mean, it makes some sense. I got roped into consoling a guy whose girlfriend had just — and I mean just just, like 5 minutes prior — broken up with him. He was crying at the sink. But the story got juicy because it turned out that a) he was pretty sure she wanted to date one of his friends and then b) it turned out one of my friends knew his friend and we passed a rather enjoyable hour just ripping him to shreds.

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