Restroom phobia

“At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.”

-George Carlin

Some time ago, I read a RollingStone interview with Andy Dick in which Dick's strange bathroom habits were discussed.

Apparently, if Andy Dick absolutely must go No. 2 in a public restroom, he begins by standing on the toilet with his feet on the rim. He then creates a hammock out of toilet paper and suspends it beneath his bottom. By doing this he allows himself to catch and carefully lower his waste with little mess to the water below, therefore keeping as much distance as possible between his skin and the surface of the toilet.

The article presented this habit as if it is completely unreasonable, as if Andy Dick is very odd for doing this. Yes, Andy Dick is odd, but for separate reasons, and I personally wouldn't go so far by creating a TP hammock and balancing myself on a toilet. But I do sympathize with him.

I avoid contact with public toilets at all costs. I would rather go my entire ten-hour shift at work with unbearable stomach cramps before my heiny goes near the rim of a public toilet. Sorry, call me crazy, but I'm just not comfortable allowing my heiny to go where many heinies, perhaps thousands, have gone before.

I've been called paranoid, a little stuck-up, and perhaps OCD, but I'm much more comfortable with a stomach ache than with the haunting suspicion that my bottom has graced the same porcelain as Lord knows how many bottoms before it. I even carry this fear despite the fact that most public restrooms I have ever been in provide those paper toilet seat protectors--but who are we kidding? Does that thin sheet really provide that much protection from whatever mix of creepy-crawlies that has made a home of any public restroom?

I never understood how George Costanza was so comfortable in using every restroom he came across. Seinfeld fans may remember that George knew all the bathrooms in New York and even rated them like he was a restaurant critic. George Costanza, the restroom critic.

Maybe I've become somewhat of a slave to my own paranoia. Maybe I need to loosen up, to give in once in a while, to tread the mysterious waters. Maybe. But I'm just not ready to go there. Perhaps I'm too timid and cowardly, but I'm just not prepared to bravely make my way into that bathroom stall, newspaper tucked in my arm, a look of determination on my face. Not today.