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.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLMxzkmClC
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…376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXifvIDtmu6
Anyway, that freestanding stall’s my sanctuary.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5U9Z77OEBn
Or it was until about a week ago.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV8fLvIMoEx
I’m still spooked. I haven’t shit at work in all that time, let alone number one-ed.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJWI6Qc2unc
I can’t go back in there. I won’t. 376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVA6DyIdjfr
The fellas wouldn’t understand. None of them use the stall anyway.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT0jSJfg2we
I’m going to take this shit to my grave if I can help it.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXpgrONMA2L
Which is funny, now that I really think about it… 376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKgqWUVokql
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.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXxwPF5f20z
I was toeing its little makeshift web when I dropped my phone with a clatter and a curse.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJrhj5ZPC7X
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. 376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvJjOu4s3M7
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.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9RGkIAhxLz
I took it without thinking. “Oh, thanks,” I said and tapped at it to make sure it was ok.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivtp06E1lg
“Don’t mention it,” the woman said, uncommitted, almost bored. 376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1BzAP4Sc1S
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?376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRrOOfMRst5
Didn’t matter in the end.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa4n5cPyJyB
There was no one there.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb9fO7WUnVC
Screw altruism or a sense of honor or something silly like that.376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡByUwgNs0RS
I’m not crapping on the clock anymore, because of a goddamned john ghost!376Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEhcMLYQnaH
