11 tips for pooping at work when someone's in the next stall
You get up from your desk, and take a leisurely walk to the office bathroom and every stall is miraculously empty.
You contently saunter into your favorite one – the one on the end. You carefully line the seat with toilet paper.
You sit down and pull out your phone to settle into some reading – perhaps a think piece, or a long Facebook post from someone you went to high school with.
Then all of a sudden, the turn of a doorknob. The click of a sensible office shoe.
Other people have entered the bathroom.
They could be settling in to put on makeup, just taking a quick pee, or even worse: pooping themselves.
Depending on your confidence levels, the following few minutes will probably be pretty awkward.
Here are our suggestions for hiding bodily sounds while pooping at work when there are other people in the bathroom – and while some of them may sound silly, they will cover the sounds of your farts.
1. Play club music loudly from your phone.
2. Wait it out in your stall in dead silence until the other people leave.
3. Hide a pair of wacky shoes under your shirt when you walk to the bathroom. Put them on while you're in the stall only so nobody recognizes your shoes while they hear you pooping.
4. Put a big ol' wad of toilet paper in the bowl right where you estimate your poop will plop – 10 points for every time you hit that TP target.
5. Bring your laptop and stream the Game of Thrones episode "The Battle of the Bastards" at full volume.
6. Make a phone call (or a fake phone call) and loudly cry out whenever you need a sound covered up.
7. As soon as someone enters the bathroom, frantically ask with a weak voice if they'll go get you a glass of water. Try to get your pooping done quickly before they return with your water.
8. Invest in a rainmaker, a la Broad City.
9. Create a diversion – bring a bunch of corgis to work and leave them right outside the bathroom door.
10. After you fart, say "Who put that Whoopee cushion in here?!" and toss a deflated Whoopie cushion on the floor.
11. If all else fails, just go use a Starbucks bathroom.
But you'll probably buy a coffee at Starbucks and just wind up having to poop again later.
Sophie was a Viral Content Intern for the Watercooler channel. More writing and other stuff by Sophie can be found at www.sophiehirsh.com.
