I don't know if I've written about this before. I've definitely discussed it with Ally. I think maybe I didn't write about it because it's another story about my experiences in the bathroom. But since I last rejected the idea of posting it, we've had a US Senator have significantly more public and inappropriate bathroom stories blogged about him, and also an internet phenom involving two girls and some number of cups which also took some things out of the bathroom that should have stayed there. So really I'm not going to be pushing any boundaries here.

It's not too inappropriate anyway - it's more of a social awkwardness thing. My mind tends to wander a lot when I'm not performing a task that requires real attention. My body just kind of runs on automatic for a bit, until I have to have my head involved in decision making again. This is a good thing, and allows me to fill my time on the walks from my desk to the bathroom with visions of sugar plums, or whatever it is I think of. It's usually not a problem to be brought back to a task that requires some action on my part, since most of the interactions we have start out pretty slow, and don't require attention strait off. "Hey Ken!" "Oh, hi - how's it going, man?" That's a couple of seconds that are totally scripted, and my lips can just do right off of muscle memory.

The problem comes around when I actually get into the bathroom and head to a urinal, without having my head request conscious control of my actions. My body if very capable of sidling up to the urinal, getting my pants sorted out, and whatnot. Generally speaking, it's usually a few seconds before this point that my head gets involved again, so all is alright. However, every once in a while, my brain lags on that request, and I actually become fully aware of my physical state before I get a full appreciation of my surroundings. My muscle memory was doing the right thing, but I start my comprehension of what's going on in the wrong order.

At which point, I briefly panic. Because I realize that I'm standing in a room, inappropriately exposed, possibly with some dude standing next to me. And until my brain catches up with the rest of the situation (. . . and I got into this state because I walked into a bathroom and up to a urinal and this is a completely alright situation to be in), I'm completely freaked out that I've just done something fairly outrageous that will definitely get me fired, and possibly have an entire thread devoted to me on thevault.com.

Doesn't happen that often, but when it does it's really worrisome.