There is one stall in our shop bathroom. There’s a little sign on the outside of it that you can flip for male or female. Since there are no women on the garage’s payroll, I flip it to reflect what I’m up to. Male means I’m taking a shit and to turn tail. Female means I’m pissing, but want some personal time to dip, swipe through my feed, maybe watch a music video, think.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ivbmAYVQ8
To the best of my knowledge, no one else ever used that stall. Either they’re too nervous to crap on the clock or they can’t stand the cobwebs. I dunno. At any rate, the stall was my unspoken throne. Some of the fellas still make jokes about it--that I’ve probably earned half my paycheck on the pooper. I usually laugh along. They’re probably right. I haven’t done the math, exactly, but…372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3cBSTfJWBB
Anyway, that freestanding stall’s my sanctuary.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZF84FVEB2
Or it was until about a week ago.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn7JTSZ4p95
I’m still spooked. I haven’t shit at work in all that time, let alone number one-ed.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYLcifhYGmT
I can’t go back in there. I won’t. 372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTHGqkARC7R
The fellas wouldn’t understand. None of them use the stall anyway.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJC5AAblVs6
I’m going to take this shit to my grave if I can help it.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLcgNr9K1bE
Which is funny, now that I really think about it… 372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA3AGjyRP2C
It happened last Friday and, in anticipation for the weekend, I’d retired to my watery cubicle to wile away the last fifteen minutes of my shift. I was doing some thinking and some sitting and not a whole lot of shitting, and it occurred to me that I should probably take a broom to the place soon, because another spider friend had joined my little rectangular space, but this one was brown and long-legged and had a face on its abdomen--which was unsettling to say the least.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLQKSkSuYwI
I was toeing its little makeshift web when I dropped my phone with a clatter and a curse.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkmWCXRerJp
That’ll teach me to screw with mother nature, I was thinking to myself as I outwardly prayed that the thing wasn’t cracked. But reaching down to grab it, I couldn’t find it. It’d slipped under the edge of the stall when it fell. Grumbling with first-world irritation, I wiped and stood up and zipped, and was just about resigned to retrieving it after a flush--but I was interrupted. 372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgKuBCmv7CO
At the bottom edge of the stall, a hand boasting red nail polish snaked under the rusted metal and passed me my phone with a polite waggle.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq9Cu7xNZSu
I took it without thinking. “Oh, thanks,” I said and tapped at it to make sure it was ok.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeURPFym80j
“Don’t mention it,” the woman said, uncommitted, almost bored. 372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHzHirHGNNo
All the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up on their ends and, before I could summon much in the way of words, I popped out of my comfort zone with a bang of the stall door to confront the woman. What was I thinking? That I’d reprimand her? Demand why she hadn't at least knocked? Wonder how she’d walked in without making a sound? Make a big stink about the fellas not keeping a customer from coming to the back of the shop?372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6Z1SJjxlo
Didn’t matter in the end.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOOByi7KtYr
There was no one there.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwNpp02511A
Screw altruism or a sense of honor or something silly like that.372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2ssOrPWgpo
I’m not crapping on the clock anymore, because of a goddamned john ghost!372Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY9VSzX8vSq
