Never are you more on stage than when you stand up to go take a leak on an airplane. To begin, you’re strolling toward the cockpit in front of 150 or so other passengers. This automatically gets people’s attention because you’re quietly announcing that you’ve either got to shake the weasel or you’re going to take a hostage with a shiv made out of a Bic pen and a suitcase zipper. It’s one or the other in their minds. They’ve got their eye on you. Most people will naturally assume you need to take a piss. They’re all looking straight ahead, directly toward you. As soon as you lock that door and the red X goes through the green light in the main aisle, their mental clock starts ticking wondering how long you’re going to spend in there.
Execution is critical when pissing on a plane. Spend too much time in there and everyone will think you are dropping a deuce. Come out too fast and they’ll all think you didn’t wash your hands. It’s a delicate balance… It’s not like anyone sets a timer on their iPhone or anything, but subconsciously they remember when you went in there and will calculate the length of your visit when you come out. Everyone is watching.
People want to know how much time you spend in the airplane lavatory because no one wants to follow you in there if you just launched a scud missile. Those bathrooms have a good fan but nobody likes to enter a recently destroyed bathroom. You want to give it time to denature a bit. Let the air turn over a couple times. As a man, to avoid undue suspicion, you have about one minute in the can. Women can double that time because their stuff isn’t as easy access as ours, so people give them the benefit of the doubt.
As I write this I’m waiting for the forward lavatory to open up. The thought crosses my mind that I need to bleed the lizard. So, I put my Kindle away, fold my tray table, and prepare to stand. Just then, a lady in the first row jukes me and beats me to the aisle. I’d have to wait. It would be unseemly to race forward and have a debate with her about who needed to piss the most. I didn’t want to tell her it was rude of her to use her front row, early pre-boarding status to her advantage. In the end it doesn’t matter. She looks like a nice, clean-living middle-aged woman, so I’m not too worried. She should be quick. After all, how much damage could she do in there? I buckle my belt and wait patiently for her to finish her business.
A couple minutes elapse and she emerges having taken just the right amount of time. She probably didn’t poop. I’m pretty sure she washed her hands. I prepare to make another charge toward the bathroom.
As the woman returns to her seat, the old guy sitting next to her politely stands to let her back in her seat. I unbuckle my belt and prepare to head north when, sure as shit, that old mother fucker proceeds directly from the courteous gesture into the can. I had to whiz but my bladder was still only at about a 5 out of 10 on the Piss-o-meter. His insensitive maneuver irked me, but I could wait for the next open time slot.
And wait I did. That fucker stayed in there for at least ten minutes. He was in there so long that a woman sitting behind me ran up to check the door once to make sure someone was actually still in there. Yup, he was in there doing God knows what. She walked back to her seat knowing that she was going to go use the toilet right after that guy probably just crushed the air in there. And now, I had to wait for her and anyone else vying for poll position in the Piss-tona 500 bathroom race sponsored by Southwest Airlines.
I mean, what’s proper protocol here? Who determines who gets to go first when waiting for the toilet on a plane? The captain always keeps the seat belt light on so, everyone has to sit. And you can’t congregate by the forward lavatory. Does everyone need a light above their seat that they can switch on if you need to use the can? I had to piss but people were preempting me left and right. I guess, peeing on a plane is all about who hits the aisle first and establishes dominance. It’s like animal husbandry. Whoever gets there first gets to propagate the species.
Back to the old guy. At first, everyone was giving him a pass when he was in there because you figure, he’s old so he’s going to need a little more time than normal to do his business. He’s got a prostate throttling his flow and he’s probably wearing some type of support hose to promote proper upper leg circulation. He’s got a lot of layers to hack through to get to the goods. But, we all knew, every minute that guy was in there meant that there was a huge possibility that he was dropping a couple bombs on Hiroshima.
Now I had a bigger problem. Not only was there a strong possibility that I was going to have to endure the malodor of this guy’s time in the john, the lady behind me already made it known that she was waiting for the room too. My bladder was approaching an excruciating 7 and I’d be a total dick if I boxed her out and ran forward as soon as the old guy walked out. I’d have to wait one more round.
I guess, the way I saw it, let her take a bullet. I didn’t want to follow Senior Crappy McCrapperton into stink town if I could avoid it. If she needs to go that bad let her follow hot on the heels of his turd extravaganza.
