I graduated from Notre Dame de Namur University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and received the department of science award at graduation. To this day, I am still uncertain as to why I obtained this honor since I did not compose very meaningful research papers. While the majority of my colleagues tackled life-altering topics like major depression and schizophrenia, I chose to investigate more obscure matters like masturbation and bestiality (clinically termed: “I think I have a crush on my dog” or “is it wrong to smear peanut butter on my body and have my pet lick it off?”disorder). However, one area that did intrigue me that was not quite as crude was dream interpretation. Now while there is much debate as to what certain images signify, I was always fascinated by dreams where someone is caught sitting on the toilet, because nothing could be more humiliating than that (except for killing your dad and having sex with your mom…Freud, you sicko). According to researchers, to see a toilet in your dream means: “You need to release your emotions or get rid of something in your life that is useless. To dream that you are watched…signifies your frustrations about not getting enough privacy.” But thank god getting caught on the toilet is an unfathomable encounter reserved for your unconscious psyche…right?
I am currently a gym member of the Jewish Community Center, a modern facility home to soccer moms, rambunctious kids wearing yamakas, and Jewish Rock socials (I assume somebody plays the Dreidel Dreidel song on the electric guitar?). I love the JCC; however, the other day I happened to open the door to my favorite stall (we all have a favorite, right) and there was a 90-year old man sitting on the toilet staring back at me. Now I have been in this elderly gentlemen’s shoes before and knew what he was experiencing, because getting caught on the toilet is much similar to experiencing a heart attack (also known as myocardial infarction): first, there is an initial moment where you don’t know what’s going on; second, you begin to experience a shortness of breath and chest discomfort as a feeling of helplessness encompasses you; and finally, a sudden panic overpowers your body, leaving you dead, or wishing that you were.
Stage 1 of the OhMy!cardial Interruption is the B&E (breaking and entry). I can only liken this to the time when I was younger and I had to go to the bathroom before a Pop Warner football game, so my grandfather escorted me to the shabby bathroom with no doors on the stalls situated in the middle of the locker room. “Pop! I can’t!” I pleaded. “Don’t worry, no one’s around,” he safely replied. The next thing I know, the entire opposing team comes marching through. There is a split-second there where you make no sudden movements, like you are being hunted by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and pretend to be an extension of the porcelain you are sitting on. However, after you make eye contact (or in my case, eye contact, then eye contact, then eye contact…), you realize the gig is up, and thus move onto phase two.
Stage 2 of OhMy!cardial Interruption is the sensation of vulnerability that cripples your body. Perhaps this arises from the fact that you are arranged in a defenseless position, looking more or less like a baby deer with your knees abnormally close together and your ankles spread wide apart, while your shoes, trousers, and underwear reside below you resembling a deflated totem pole. You sit there, exposed, weak, open to attack, like Luke Skywalker after having his arm severed by Darth Vader’s light saber or when you get pantsed in the swimming pool (oh really?! That never happened to you, lucky mother…). By the time your consciousness slowly begins to make its way back into your mind, your natural fight or flight instincts have already taken over (but since you ain’t going nowhere with your pants around your ankles, it’s basically just fight).
The final stage of OhMy!caridal Interruption is panic. Panic can be summed up as the mad dash you make for your pants comparable to a fumble recovery in football. It’s a sudden grabbing and pulling and tugging of your slacks to conceal your privates. However, due to your cumbersome positioning, you usually manage to get up to a certain point before conceding defeat like in a game of Sudoku. This leaves you feeling in a state of embarrassment, somewhere between getting caught masturbating to porn by your grandma and realizing that it is not okay for your mom to kiss you on the lips anymore in front of your friends when she drops you off at school. And while a typical heart attack is capped off with a final gurgling noise as you make your way to oblivion, OhMy!caridal, too, is summarized with a primordial grunt of “Oh” (chimpanzee for: Oh sh**).
But like any form of social interaction, there is a beautiful rebuttal by the intrudee, sort of like a unique mating ritual that only a high-powered lens can capture at a moment’s notice. The standard procedure includes air being snatched from your lungs like when you get an unsuspecting wedgie from your younger brother after destroying his Lego’s, averting your eyes back and forth as if you are watching a tennis match on TV in fast forward, and the classic inaudible dialogue where you try to conjugate “oh,” “whoops,” and “excuse me,” into the single phrase of: “ohoopscueme.” This is ensued by the bowing gesture you make in the presence of Japanese royalty, followed by the delicate shutting of the door as you make your way out of the stall (an ironic symbolism since you have already disturbed, and most likely traumatized, the victim).
Now although I may appear to be the leading expert in the field of not only masturbation, bestiality, and dream analysis, but bathroom etiquette as well, the interaction with the 90-year old man that resulted due to my surprise access into his stall can only be regarded as: huh? The gentleman that I barged in on did not display any of the typical symptoms an OhMy!cardial Interruption patient exhibits under such circumstances. While his bowel-relieving form might have been a bit of an oddity, looking thereabouts like an offensive lineman about to defend his quarterback from being sacked by his walker (a posture I call the Porta-Potty technique: just close enough, but you don’t want to make contact), his face is what frightened me. He was smiling! Smiling! Like: “Hello there, I’ve been expecting you.” No frozen motion. No sensation of vulnerability. No panic. Just “Hi.” Seeing that he had blatantly disregarded the “getting walked in on” procedure, I, too, defied the rule and offered him no polite bow or “ohoopscueme” and just walked out.
I was quite befuddled by this bizarre exchange, but my mind had yet to be blown. The following day, I changed into my workout clothes, grabbed a towel, and went to my stall and BAM! Guess who is there. And again, no customary reaction. The only thing missing this time around was a candlelit dinner table for two set before him and his welcoming grin. While I refused to have a Lady and the Tramp moment with this senior citizen involving a roll of toilet paper instead of spaghetti, I marched off to the front desk to make my complaint. Now don’t get me wrong; by this time anger was the least of my emotions and I would never protest a gym infraction like not locking the bathroom door…but I had to share this hilarious coincidence with someone. Unfortunately, the woman who worked the front desk that day was devoid of all humor (I explained my “complaint” and she asked me to fill out a complaint card that she could pass on to the proper authorities…although she did advise me to look through the crack of the stall door before entering in the future. My response: is that really my responsibility?! For the rest of my time on this planet I will be known as the pervert who goes around looking through the crack in bathroom stalls. No thanks).
But like all things in life, this came to an end as well. Whenever I opened the stall door, I was no longer greeted with a warm smile but by the toilet’s lifeless face. Having not seen him in over a month, I realize that perhaps he discovered the world was not ready for his jovial bathroom greetings. Or perhaps he relocated to the stall at a retirement community where the victims would not be as quick to flee (I imagine getting out of a stall when your older is much like making a 3-point turn in a car). Or perhaps, like dreams, there is a hidden meaning to these encounters. A masked metaphor. A symbolism that while you may not know what resides behind the doors in life, and while you may be expecting to see more sh**, someone will be waiting there with a smile on their face letting you know it’s okay to come in. But then again, that stuff only happens in dreams.
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