The Best Thing To Do While Sitting On a Public Toilet.

I have discovered something that will revolutionize your world. Be it at work or school or at an airport or any number of other locations, we all have the daily necessity of taking care of some business in a public restroom. Now a king is not a king on any other thrown than his own. Which means that what should be a relaxing, pleasant experience can often be full of anxiety and embarrassment due to the lack of privacy those damn stalls are known for. But my friends, I have devised a strategy that will revolutionize this experience and restore it as the liberating release it should be.

A quick disclaimer: there has been plenty of crass humor in this blog but I'm pretty sure I have completely avoided any reference to the bathroom. (It's entirely possible that last line is bullcrap.) This has not been an accident. I'm no prude but I almost always find poo jokes to be just plain gross. Not funny gross. Gross. But this discovery needs to be shared. And if it is done at the expense of my better judgment, so be it.

Now there is no shortage of things you should avoid while having a sit down appointment with your friend John. A few examples include: Yodeling. Sure, you may have great acoustics, but it's poor etiquette and just irritating for those around you. Eating a Baby Ruth. This leads to some pretty obvious sensorial confusion. Talking on a cell phone. This is a lose lose situation for everyone involved, both of the people on that call and anyone else in that bathroom. Have you ever heard someone complain that they dropped their cell phone in the toilet? The untold part of that story is that they had to reached their bare hand into the toilet to fish out their phone. Now depending on the timing of that drop, I would only give 50/50 odds that the water was clear. The moral of the story? Keep your phone in your pocket.

But what could this world changing discovery be? Like most great innovations the answer is quite simple; find yourself a good song on the old Ipod and crank it. I know, it's not extraordinarily original. But the advantages of this cannot be understated.

It is important that you decide on the song before you enter the bathroom. This jump starts the musical sensation and prevents any indecisiveness further into the process. By playing a really good song on high volume, you not only cancel out any noise (made by either you or the fat guy in the stall next to you) you replace that noise with an escapist experience that let's your mind float away. This releases you from any hesitation that you may have previously felt. You are liberated, oblivious to your surroundings and completely free to to properly express yourself.

You know how blind people have really good hearing? By losing one sense, the others compensate and are heightened, right? Well the opposite is also true. By focusing on the sense of hearing in such an overwhelming way, all the other senses are dialed down. This means that by rocking out to Guns N Roses while on the can, your sense of smell will be inhibited enough that any odor (again either coming from you or the fat guy next door) will lose a great deal of its offensiveness. Thus allowing you to enjoy your time spent.

It is also important to continue listening until you are out of the bathroom all together, so that the full impact of your surroundings is not realized, ruining the illusion of privacy you have created. Also, by keeping that Ipod in the pocket until after hand washing you prevent any cross contamination. No one needs is a pooey Ipod.

Seriously, give this a try. Apple needs to start including this in their marketing. However, one word of caution: fellas, don't get too into your music. While employing this strategy at the airport a few weeks ago, I was rocking out to some Neil Diamond. That's right. Neil Diamond. The single greatest creative genius of this or any other generation. And as I was bobbing my head to Cracklin' Rosie (how hell can't you?) I realized that I was aggressively tapping my foot to the unapologetic bliss of his music. What can I say? Neil makes me sing like a guitar humming. But the last thing you ever want to do is accidentally (or on purpose) solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom (or any bathroom). "Honestly Officer, I was just jamming to Neil! Well, that didn't sound very good either. But I'm innocent, I tell ya!"

Larry Craig should have bagged that whole "wide stance" bullcrap and gone with the Ipod defense. Everyone knows you can't be held responsible for any foot tapping when rocking out to the hairy chested, fist pumping, testosterone infused Beautiful Noise that is the music of Neil freakin Diamond.

So there it is folks. I just made about ten minutes of your day a little bit brighter.