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.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO6PgZu17Gk
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…416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Xmm6qDACY
Anyway, that freestanding stall’s my sanctuary.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxTLmZPUOEi
Or it was until about a week ago.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgZ9DYRxSdP
I’m still spooked. I haven’t shit at work in all that time, let alone number one-ed.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl3WVlOlR7J
I can’t go back in there. I won’t. 416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM2m1MyFN48
The fellas wouldn’t understand. None of them use the stall anyway.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0i3VDu3PzV
I’m going to take this shit to my grave if I can help it.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbuQwXp11iP
Which is funny, now that I really think about it… 416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhKKzTnEU1Y
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.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJhis5Pp32v
I was toeing its little makeshift web when I dropped my phone with a clatter and a curse.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn6PfAWpX7v
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. 416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP3LGt7NfO8
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.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdsjFE4AyMT
I took it without thinking. “Oh, thanks,” I said and tapped at it to make sure it was ok.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA0fwuZI2CC
“Don’t mention it,” the woman said, uncommitted, almost bored. 416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiDKln7rpkT
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?416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwk8mjwBv1D
Didn’t matter in the end.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhR5sogruHh
There was no one there.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMADeJjzKGQ
Screw altruism or a sense of honor or something silly like that.416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVk3hqv6d5Z
I’m not crapping on the clock anymore, because of a goddamned john ghost!416Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSEQLbwk459
