Regarding the title - if you didn't read his blog from last year about his experience in the "loo" at Heathrow Airport, you may want to look on the right and go back to post from May 28, 2009 to read the first "loo" story.
This story had all of us (Gilles, Janet and me) laughing to the point of tears when Jim told us - hope you enjoy it just as much!
Another Loo Story
There are certain universal rules that exist to maintain basic human dignity. At least I would like to believe so. Take using the men’s room, the john, the water closet, the loo. The rules for men are an unfathomable calculus of social mores, personal preferences and basic instincts, but certain fundamental elements hold true regardless of culture. I am not suggesting that it is any less complicated for women. I could ask, but I don’t think I really want to know. I still prefer the quaint notion of the powder room. As a boy, I recall the glimpses I would catch walking past an opening or closing door to the ladies “lounge.” These furtive sights revealed a world so different than the men’s room. There were brightly lit mirrors and crushed velvet stools and chaises. Women were clustered around these mirrors actually carrying on conversations. The whooshing of the swinging door exploded a flowery fragrance into the hall suggesting a garden-like atmosphere. These glimpses were corroborated by movies in which these spacious rooms were opportunities for women to apply bright red lipstick and powder their faces as they spoke breathlessly about their husbands or boyfriends or other women, using the smacking of their freshly rouged lips on a tissue as punctuation.
I am not hopelessly lost in the 50’s. I just prefer that image. It is an image, however, that makes the men’s room seem medieval. As jarring as some of the conditions can be, it is not so much the environment as much as the men’s room etiquette that poses the challenge. Issues of territory: proximity and privacy (sight and sound) all run through that great calculator known as a man’s brain. It’s actually quite instinctual. Upon entering one must stake a claim that provides maximum distance from other males of the species while anticipating future entrants. Once territory as been established other challenges arise such as initiation and aim of the stream. As any woman who has lived with a male can testify, this is no mean feat. However, the biggest challenge is the fart quandary (FQ).
Because things in nature rarely happen in isolation, the establishment of an adequate stream requires the relaxation of two sphincter muscles. The essential question then becomes: When is it okay to “let fly a fart?”
That quote is from the Miller’s Tale found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales which ironically begins, “Once on a time was dwelling in Oxford...” The line, “Let fly a fart” is the only thing I remember from my high school literature class. Out of the entire Norton Anthology, what else is a fourteen year old boy really going to remember? Although I had no clue what he was saying most of the time, I felt I had a bawdy kindred spirit in Chaucer, a spirit that finds a common humanity through the most basic of functions that we all share. How else can you explain the whoope cushion?
There is actually one other thing I recall from that class: the character of “Jimmy Legs” from Melville’s “Billy Budd.” It is memorable only because a classmate tried for 2 years to affix that nickname to me. It never caught on despite his persistence. In fact no one else ever called me that. I think it’s because I’m not really a nickname kind of guy. The same wasn’t true for my friend Paul who had more nicknames that the Inuit have words for snow. “Boo,” “Babushka,” “Thunder thighs” were just a few he would accumulate almost weekly. The only nickname for me that had any legs was usually hurled during the occasional ethnic bashing. I was “McWop” due to my Irish/Italian heritage. We all had these epithets that were only brandished in the heat of battle. Milosevic had nothing on our readiness to use ethnicity as a way to humiliate, denigrate and decimate each other. God, I miss those days!
But I digress....
While dining at the Isis Farmhouse Pub in Oxford, I found myself in need of the loo. As I was the only male, establishing territory was easy. I was relaxed and calculus free. Just as I secured a site, another male of the species entered. In any other setting, two males of the species might acknowledge each other’s presence, but in the loo, eyes are averted and a deafening silence takes hold. That is unless one must “let fly a fart!” Just as I am not a nickname kind of guy, I am not a flagrant fart flyer. Lisa would STRENUOUSLY disagree. However this is the men’s room. There are different rules.
Again, because things in nature rarely happen in isolation I am forced into the ancient art of Ninja Wind. This highly skilled manuveur permits the opening of the floodgates while simultaneously closing the vent...if you catch my drift, which, if done properly, you won’t! As the fates would have it I was not entirely successful because from out of my arse (Thanks Chaucer!) was born a sound that can best be described as, “piccolo-ish.” Now, in the convoluted world of men’s room etiquette it would have been better to “let fly a fart as loud as it had been a thunder-clap,” than to produce the pitch of a newly trapped mouse. I redoubled my efforts and managed to gain control and although I may have lost face, silence if not my dignity, was restored. It was the next sound, however, that truly unnerved me.
“Well done!”
I looked to the left and found my loo-mate sporting a rather rakish grin. Suddenly I found myself in a comedy of manners. In the UK, is it customary to acknowledge the passing of wind? What exactly had been done well? Was it a simple acknowledgment of our shared experience? Was it in reference to the pitch just shy of a dog whistle? I had no clue what to say. I suppose a jocular “Thanks” would have been the way to go but all I could manage was an awkward smile. Washing at the sink I was glad there were no brightly lit powder room mirrors because all I would have seen was my look of confusion and bewilderment. Had I committed some faux pas by failing to respond properly? Will my rakish friend return to his table and complain to his mates about the crass American? Was HE the one who breached what I believed to be a universal code? I will never know if it was a breach of etiquette or a more relaxed British variation. What I do know is that, once on a time dwelling in Oxford, I rediscovered Chaucer and perhaps a little more of my humanity. Someday, I hope to have the courage to rise up against the tyranny of class and acknowledge the elephant fart in the room with a sincere and reassuring, “Well done!” Who knows... if I use a British accent, I won’t get my ass kicked.
Thanks for expressing yourself, Jim!
ReplyDelete