The Show Down

When I weighed myself this morning I was a full 2.5 lbs heavier than I was yesterday, though to the best of my knowledge, I did not eat an additional 2.5 lbs of food yesterday. This is the first time in my life that I’ve religiously applied to a scale for a sense of my own self worth. If I had even casually monitored my weight in the past year, I would probably not be in this situation. I would have seen the numbers climbing and made appropriate adjustments. Instead, I scorned owning a scale in favor of owning an additional 30 lbs of woman-flesh adhered delicately to my abdomen.

I rampaged around the house taking my fury out on everything in sight: Beau for trying to drink the last of the coffee, Beau for putting his shoes up on the coffee table, Beau for not agreeing to come home early to make me dinner… mostly just Beau. I finally calmed down and conjectured that it could be either a combination of the rum cake from last night and part of Grasshoppah’s buffalo chicken wrap from yesterday’s lunch or water weight. Beau offered that perhaps I just had to take a massive pooh.

Since his idea was the only one I had any control over, I began chugging coffee as soon as I got to work to, ya know, speed things up. Finally the time came and I bustled off to my favorite bathroom stall. Mid-ya know, someone walked in: my new arch nemesis, Amy Wineouses’ Doppelganger. In Bertha’s wake, I was left with this over-kempt girl of twenty-something who appears to pull her wardrobe directly from the pages of Cosmopolitan. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just be aware that wearing a snug vest over a long white button-down with a pencil skirt and 5-inch stilettos, pancake makeup, a jet-black bouffant, and a perpetual pout of disdain will cause me to judge you. Harshly. And on the internet.

So, it was fairly easy to identify Doppelganger when she tottered into the room in stilts and planted herself in front of the mirror where she proceeded to apply cosmetics, and, I assume, feed the raging goblins that dwell within with a mixture of heroin and Chiclets. Next, armed with a wet paper towel (yes, this much I ascertained from vigilant listening and also looking through the door gap) she seated herself in a stall somewhere to my left. Then the furious sounds of reams of toilet paper being pulled from the roll. Enough to wrap a small child in. Then silence. Then more silence.

I sat there patiently waiting for her absence in order to resume activity since there is nothing worse than a prolonged bathroom silence interrupted by a deafening plop. If you are the type of person to do this, then I must ask you to stop reading my blog and never come back. That one thing is perhaps the only thing that I find truly offensive. Pooping in a quiet room of strangers. Shudder. But I digress.

Finally, it became apparent that she was also waiting for my absence. Oh Doppelganger, don’t try to outwait me, I thought. I am a receptionist. I spend all day waiting for something to happen. If I need to spend that time waiting in a bathroom stall instead of at my desk, so be it. More to the point, I was there first and frankly, I was in the middle of something important.

Happily, she did her thing and vacated. I won. With just 10 days left at this job, I have finally triumphed in a bathroom that was a battleground for a year and a half: coworkers trying to discuss paperwork while we were both otherwise occupied, creepy Indian ladies trespassing in the buffer stall, Bertha’s digestive stench. Today, 2 weeks from my permanent departure, I am victorious. I am also probably 2.5 pounds lighter.