Restrooms, Doing Nothing, and Annoying Habits – Thoughts from December 10, 2025

It’s been a while since I wrote about just my thoughts. This thought takes us back to the restroom. It’s based on a little bit of actual events, but it’s more of a general thinking around the restroom. Humans have been using restrooms for a relatively brief time in human history. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that people still act weird in them, but it does. A recently walked into a restroom and only knew someone was in the stall because I could hear them breathing.

When you think about it, you don’t hear most people breathe. A person must be straining pretty hard to hear them breathing in a stall. Admittedly, restrooms are my least favorite places because they amplify all sounds. Normally, this means you hear other people taking toilet paper or fiddling with their clothes. When you hear only breathing, it’s creepy. I’m usually picturing a large older man who is about to have a heart attack on the toilet, like Elvis. The few times I’ve seen them come out of the stall; I was correct.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have people making noise in the restroom than being silent. Silence is my enemy. Hearing minimal signs that a human is in the restroom with you makes me nervous. I have an inner dialogue with myself about why someone would just sit on the toilet and not do anything. At least bodily noises are proof that the person is trying to make things happen. Even when I’m at the urinal, my backside “burps.” These sounds are acceptable in a restroom. Silence is not.

While we’re discussing restrooms, I will state my continuing wish for all men in all restroom stalls. Sit down on the toilet, do your number two business, give a courtesy flush, do your number one business, and flush when you’re done with all business and cleanup. If you cannot accomplish this, there is something wrong with you medically. Things like getting fiber in your diet, drinking plenty of water throughout the day, and avoiding foods that have no nutritional value will help you “regulate” your restroom habits.

Now that I’ve discussed what to do while you are in the restroom, let’s talk about what not to do. If you do these things, consider yourself unworthy to read my words. Most likely, the people who do these things are not reading words written by a judgmental blowhard like me. With them out of the way, I will list some things people do in the restroom that should never be done. The first few things have to do with the phone. These are all recent concerns, but they have quickly become annoying habits. Rather than make this paragraph super huge, I’ll talk about them in the next paragraphs.

Talking on the phone while you’re at the urinal is rude to the people in the restroom and whoever they are talking to. A step up from this is talking on the phone while you’re in a stall. At the very least, it breaks the rule of not just sitting on the toilet without doing toilet-related activities. There are much bigger problems if they are doing toilet-related activities while they’re on the phone. For all people on the phone, the annoyance factor goes to eleven when the person is talking through their speakerphone. This is rude no matter where someone is talking.

Texting while on the toilet runs between being rude and just disgusting. If kidnappers forced me to text on a toilet, you would not hear my phone. My texts do not make any sound. The first thing I do when I get a new phone is turn off the texting clicks. One new one I’ve only heard a couple times is someone playing a video game on their phone while on the toilet. This one relates to texting because it concerns the sound of the texting or the video game. If you’re playing with your headphones, I may not even know what you’re doing. Sounds that don’t belong in the restroom, depending on the volume, can be less annoying than complete silence, but I would rather not have either. With that, I will curtesy flush this Thoughts from Life down the internet toilet.