Call Back Later

There was a time when all our phones were landlines. We didn't call them landlines; we just called them phones. They were attached to the wall by cords. Some people equipped their phones with extra long cords so they could walk across the room while talking.

My friend Char, who lived in a small studio apartment, had a cord long enough that she could get to any spot in the apartment while she was on the phone. On a couple of occasions, while we were conversing, I heard the toilet flush.

"If you're going to use the toilet while we're talking," I told her, "I don't want to know. Please flush after we hang up."

Now that everyone has a mobile phone, it seems that making calls from the toilet is a common practice. I notice this in public restrooms, where I often hear the person in the next stall chatting away. Some women like to use the handicap stall as a phone booth. (These are probably the same people who use it as a dressing room.)

At home, it doesn't occur to me to carry my phone into the bathroom. In a public place, my phone is in my purse and goes where I go. If it rings while I'm busy, I don't answer.

Some people, though, can't resist answering a call. And if the call of nature happens simultaneously with the call of the phone, they multitask. Some see their toilet time as an opportunity for privacy, and schedule their calls accordingly.

A recent study suggests the 39 percent of people take their phones to the washroom, and that nearly half of those people have dropped the phone into the toilet. This isn't good for the phones. I once managed to accidentally drop my phone into a glass of water, just a week after I got it. Fortunately, it was insured, and I got a quick replacement. As silly as I felt at the time, how much more embarrassed would I have been if the phone had vanished into the commode?

Although the obvious solution is to stop making calls in the bathroom, it seems unlikely people will change that bevavior. I suggest wearing the phone on a lanyard. Many people have already thought of this, and there is a wide choice of suitable products available from all the usual places.

 

Boys and Girls Together

I see a lot of people online who seem absolutely convinced that thousands of men are so desperate to spy on girls in locker rooms and restrooms that they will disrupt their entire lives, undergo cosmetic surgery, possibly even have their reproductive organs removed, take potentially dangerous hormones, lose all hope of ever having a "normal" dating life or marriage, subject themselves to being mocked and ostracized -- all for the fleeting gratification of peeking at females.

It's certainly true that some men enjoy the opportunity to get a glimpse of women in revealing circumstances. For example, the former owner of the Miss Teen USA pageant admitted to deliberately barging into the dressing room while the contestants were undressed. But even that guy probably wouldn't have gone so far as to undergo a sex change, just for the dubious thrill of hanging out with ladies in locker rooms.

We live in a world where almost anything is possible, so it is possible that there has been, or might be, a man or two who would go to such extremes for such a minor payoff. In any case, this isn't something that is happening everywhere all the time, as the alarmists would have us believe.

But the fear that this is a widespread phenomenon has caused problems for some girls, especially girls who compete in sports. Girls who are perceived as being not pretty enough, girls who are much taller than average or who have very low body fat and well-developed muscles are often accused of being men in disguise. These girls may have a natural ability to excel at sports, but find themselves denounced and vilified, forced to live under a cloud of suspicion simply because an ignorant mob doesn't like their looks.

 

Potty Training

Hubby and I spent nearly a year traveling throughout Europe. During that time, we encountered a lot of public restrooms. It wasn't at all unusual to find a restroom that was intended to be used by both men and women. In many cases, there would be a row of stalls for women on one side, and a row of stalls for men on the other side. The sinks, used by both sexes, were in the middle. In some cases, there were stalls marked for men and stalls marked for women, intermingled, with a few unmarked stalls, too. In some cases, stalls weren't labeled, and you just took your turn, regardless of sex. As far as I could tell, nobody suffered any ill effects from this. I only felt uncomfortable once. That happened when I used a traditional women's restroom that had attendants. Oddly, the attendants were all male. (I don't remember what country I was in at the time.)

The restrooms that were available to both sexes could have been used by people who were transgender, and nobody would have noticed. For most people, restrooms aren't places we go to report on who else is there.

Once in a diner in the U.S. I walked into the ladies' room and saw a man standing there. He had come in with his baby to use the changing table. I didn't feel threatened, but just went ahead and entered a stall.

Even in the U.S., where some people are hyper-aware of sexual division in public facilities, it is generally legal for a disabled person who needs assistance to be accompanied by an opposite-sex companion. After my accident, I was in a wheelchair for a while, and needed help in the bathroom. My husband went with me. Sometimes we used the women's room, sometimes the men's. We just rolled into the handicap stall and closed the door. Nobody fainted, nobody called the cops, nobody died. We both survived without permanent emotional trauma.