Aw Come on! --Gob Bluth

Listen people, no one likes it when you are talking on your cell phone in a restaurant and decide that you need to yell into the phone because the restaurant is too loud for you to be heard. And it is definitely uncool for your phone to ring during church. Don't even get me started on texting someone when the person right in front of you is trying to talk to you. And by the way, if you refuse to put your call on hold to deal with the sales clerk, it does not make you look cool. It makes you look obnoxious.

But you know what really fries my cheese? Talking on your cell in the public restroom. Aw, come on! It is hard enough to relax on a toilet that is not your own. Especially when those stalls provide little to no privacy with their cracks and crevices. (Who amongst us has not experienced a random child staring into the crack as you are wiping? I just wave. But I digress.) Now you have to listen to who just lost their job and who slept with whose brother best friend and so on and so on all while trying to relax and let nature take its course.

I had a similar such incident yesterday at a local Chinese buffet. After enjoying a hearty meal of Vegetable Lo Mein, I made a stop by the restroom. When I first went in, it seemed like I was alone. The handicap stall was standing open, but I went into the little stall instead. Good thing I did. A few steps into the stall and I hear "Mmmmm" followed by another "Mmmmm"

"What are they doing in there?" I thought to myself. "And why was the door left open for it?" I had not seen this woman at all when I entered—she had been hiding behind the stall door, leaning against the wall. I had to peek under to see if her feet were there—and they were—but I half expected them to be up, perched like a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was like the chick was in ninja talking on a cell phone mode.

Then all of the sudden a wave of Chinese words came out…I have no idea at all what this woman was saying, but it was pretty intense. Apparently she had done whatever she came to do in the potty, but was so entranced in her conversation, she could not leave the bathroom to finish her conversation. Perhaps they had good sound in there.

To make matters worse, I felt like I was being judged. Every time I made a move she would say “Ohhhhhh” on the phone, followed by something Chinese. I was convinced it had something to do with the fat Caucasian woman sitting in the stall next to her, but I never heard her say my name. Ninjas are very stealthy that way.

Then I find myself having guilt. What is something happens and I pass gas in here while she is on the phone and her friend thinks it was her? “No, I swear it was this fat Caucasian lady in the stall next to me!”

Am I allowed to flush when she is still talking? Is that rude? I just don’t know.

So I am sitting there stuck. Unable to do my business. Unable to unroll the toilet paper. Unable to flush. And I am thinking about my great ninja like escape when suddenly, out of no where, she turns to leave the room—finally continuing her conversation outside of the bathroom. Guess t had nothing to do with the sound after all. Maybe she was freaked out by the fat Caucasian lady staring out at her from the crack of the bathroom stall…