Please Excuse Me, I Need to go to the Chatroom

I just read a blog about the etiquette of charging your cell phone in public. The post was Freshly Pressed, which means featured by WordPress. If a blogger is lucky enough to have a post Freshly Pressed, they are being exposed to a much larger audience and may have 1000s of hits to their blog as a result of the Fresh Pressing. I have not been Freshly Pressed but Decently Ironed as I have mentioned. The cell phone post generated a huge amount of discussion about an issue that I didn’t know was an issue, but I don’t charge my phone more than every couple of days so I don’t know about the ins and outs of that.

I mention this because I have a little etiquette question of my own.

I work in an office building as many people around the world do. There are probably 10-12 different offices on the 4th floor of my building. There is one restroom each for women and men. Restroom….bathroom, restroom sounds silly but that’s not why I’m here. The women’s bathroom has an antechamber which has two sinks, paper towel dispenser and a wall of mirrors. There is a door that leads into the area where one can “rest” while sitting on a toilet.  There are four stalls in the rest area.

I recognize most of the people on my floor because I see them regularly. I don’t know all their names although I do know Jonathan from next door and Karen from the law office at the end of the hall. I know the KForce gals always look very chic and gossip a LOT in the bathroom. There are cute guys down at the other end of the hall, I don’t know what they do. There is a woman with a white/gray bob who wears a headband and is very charming and lovely in a horsey sort of way. And there is Isolde (as in Tristan and Isolde but she pronounces it Eezolday, which I don’t think is right) I know Isolde from chatting in the elevator or saying Hi in the hall. I’m sure she doesn’t know my name, I just have a freaky memory for names. All I’m saying is, we aren’t chums.

One day I went into the bathroom to “rest” and as it turns out Isolde was in there, too. I don’t know how she knew it was me or maybe she didn’t know who it was in the stall two down from her butt she started chatting. She wanted to discuss what a piss poor job the cleaning people do in cleaning the bathrooms.

“They aren’t cleaning these bathrooms. They just go through and put the toilet seats up and leave them there so it looks like they cleaned it. I’ve noticed hairs on the floor and on the toilet rim and I know they have been there for days. Have you looked at the stain on the floor at the end? We should be wearing gloves.”

Oh for the love of all that is good and holy, please stop talking! I’m going to the bathroom in a public restroom secure in my illusion of its cleanliness please do not disabuse me of that belief, let me just hold on till I can wash my hands and get the hell out of here.

Is it me? Should people just stick to resting in that sort of situation? I don’t want to talk to anyone when I’m resting unless it’s a close friend or one of my children and they’re too old now for me to be telling them what to do in a public restroom.