Wash

In my office we have one men’s bathroom. It has a bank of urinals and some stalls, just like any other men’s room anywhere in New York. It also has two different sets of sinks – one row inside the bathroom proper, and one row outside in this vestibule arrangement that I don’t understand no matter how hard I try.

This second bank of sinks is probably a good thing, because you can go into the first part of the bathroom and wash your hands without having to step into the fumes of three guys simultaneously taking shits together – a situation which seems to be de rigueur for my office around mid-afternoon or so.

There’s a guy in my office that irritates the shit out of me, which should surprise nobody. The surprise, of course, is that there’s only one guy, but that can change in a heartbeat, given my propensity to blindly hate other humans for the most insignificant of perceived slights. I no longer have perspective, which is fine by me. I just kind of want them all to leave me alone. This is my impossible dream. I’m the Man of La Mancha, only with a hole in my favorite pair of shoes that’s causing me to spend my days with a wet sock every time I forget and step in a pile of slush. I don’t really care about this.

This guy irritates me because he does stupid things like wandering into pedestrian corridors without looking. Sometimes he does this with his head turned in the direction opposite where he’s going. Once, he did this walking backward. This sort of thing is the height of naiveté. I hate it. I have no faith in people to get out of my way, so I don’t do this. Neither should you. It’s the cat having a litter of kittens then expecting the world to raise them. It’s irresponsible.

When this guy takes a leak, he does something unusual. He uses the outer group of sinks to wash his hands. In other words, he takes a leak, touches the door handle without washing his hands, and then takes care of his sanitary considerations outside. I don’t understand this because there’s no difference between the two groups of sinks, and because people are watching him do this. This means he has an absolute lack of awareness – or concern – for anyone and anything around him.

I want to punch him squarely in the face and call it a career.