Wednesday, June 18, 2008

To the freak who would not stop rattling the door handle in Caribou Coffee today:

I am typically a mild-mannered girl. But today this biatch totally crossed the line with her incessant bathroom door handle rattling. She tried the handle very thoroughly the first time and I forgave her. I thought to myself, "Yes, she tried it very well and good. Surely she is satisfied that the door is, in fact, locked and will now wait patiently outside until she sees someone leave." BUT NO. A few seconds later, the same persistent doorknob handling. I'm in disbelief, but I still want to forgive. I'm like, "Ok, she's really got to go, but if it's that serious, she can step into the men's room...like who wouldn't do that?". And then the third time happened and I could not stop myself from shouting at her "SOMEONE IS IN HERE, GO AWAY!!! JEBUS GOD!!! FOR REAL??!?!". I even muttered, "Just because you can't see me doesn't mean I'm not in here." A triple negative. I know. I kind of surprised myself. I mean, seriously lady, THREE TIMES?? Did you witness anyone leaving the one locked door that you tried only moments before?? Doesn't it stand to reason that the door will be locked until someone unlocks it? Then she made me feel kind of bad with her polite response of "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize." Seriously?! How could it have been made any clearer to you that someone, a real person with needs and feelings, was in the bathroom?

The real issue that I have with what happened today is that one of the main differences between being an infant and being an adult is the ability to infer unwitnessed activities to explain situations that you do not understand and are presently experiencing. For instance, if I'm an infant and I see someone walk into the bathroom, I will not know that the person is still in the bathroom until I see her walk out the door again. When she walks out, I will be bewildered into hysterics that the person is now in front of me. I mean, who knew someone was behind that door and didn't utterly disappear from the universe? As an adult, I can make all sorts of inferences about the present situation even if I didn't witness the original event of the person walking into the bathroom. As an adult, I am capable of inferring that the original event occurred even though I didn't witness it and the locked door is evidence of that. I can infer from this evidence that the person inside the bathroom does not cease to exist simply because I cannot see her. The lack of object permanence is what makes peekaboo so crazy fun for babies and not so much for adults.

I made a vow to myself long ago when I finally calmed down enough mentally to tame my temper somewhat (today was a rare slip-up) that I would not let people rush me unnecessarily. There are examples of this subtle form of patience in anyone's daily routine. For instance, the passing lane. If you ride my ass, I am NOT speeding up so that you can zoom around me. I set the cruise control for a reason. I know that it increases my risk of getting shot, but I'm doing it for your own good. You need to slow yo ride and bullying me is only going to make me drive slower. [I feel the need to explain, however, that I only do this when I myself am passing someone. It seems that I sometimes do not pass people as quickly as they would like so they think that riding my bumper is going to make me pass faster. But they are wrong.] Yes, I am THAT person. And also, the checkout counter. If I have a wad of cash in my hand and you're standing there waiting to checkout, don't think that I'm moving out of your way just so you can save five seconds. You can stand there and wait patiently because I got to put my stuff away, ok? If there is room, I will move aside so that you can begin your extremely important transaction. It's a hard lesson to learn, but just because you have an agenda doesn't mean that it's more important than anyone else's. For real. DEAL.

3 comments:

individually wrapped slices said...

I like that object permanence and bathroom/adult connection. NICE.

Oh and along the same lines, I hate it when people knock on the bathroom door and then pull on the door anyways. I cant tell you how many times this has happened:
Im sitting in the bathroom and hear polite rapping on the door.
"Oh! Tootles! Alas, someone is in here and it tis me!" (yes, I say that. I grew up in a different era than some of you guys).
And then they try to do some X-Men rip the door off the hinges anyways.

So it annoys me when people knock because apparently in bathrooms, like in deep space, no one hears your cries.

QCS - 88.5 FM said...

Hi Sharon, thanks for listening to QCS today. Shoot us an email at wrasqcs@gmail.com and I'll see if we can arrange a copy of that interview for you.

Rabbit said...

I can't wait for late-night, drunk-from-experience rants and raves in costa. <3