I’m driving home from No Exit and chatting Valerie on the cell phone. “I hope you don’t mind if I tell you,” she said. “I have to pee.”
“What, you mean right now?” I asked.
“Yes, right now,” she said. “I’m going to go pee. We can continue the conversation, though.”
“No, wait a minute,” I said. “No, we can’t. You can hang up and pee and then call me back. It is a rule for men that no conversation will take place when anyone is peeing.”
“Oh, really?” she said. “Women talk when they pee. You’ll go into a women’s bathroom and usually the women will be having a conversation on the toilets. All kinds of personal deep-down details of their lives, communicated at high volume across the stalls.”
“No,” I whispered hoarsely. “That’s a lie… a damned lie.”
“It’s totally true,” she said. “Don’t men do that?”
“Hell no!” I shouted. “That’s unnatural! Men don’t have conversations at the urinals! Pee time is private time! You should never, ever talk to another person when they are peeing! It is just wrong! Peeing while talking is not to be tolerated!”
Silence.
“Valerie?”
I hear the unmistakable sound of a toilet flushing.
Psssssssssssssssst. I can see your wee-wee.