An Open Letter to That Girl in the Next Stall Clearly Trying to Poop

Dear Anonymous Female Bathroom Stall Neighbor, Please, drop the act. I know what you're doing. I know why you're here.

You're not researching the sturdiness of public toilets. You're not admiring the stall graffiti and wondering why someone thought to bring a pen in there with them. This is a bathroom, and you are here because you need to take a dump.

Because girls DO poop. I know that. You know that. And I know you know that, because you've clearly been waiting for just the right moment to drop off the kids at the pool. You cautiously pushed open the bathroom door, listened, checked for feet under all the stalls, and the coast was clear. Nothing could get in between you and that porcelain throne. But just as you posted up on the toilet, ready to let loose, you heard the one sound every girl who is about to take a poop in a public bathroom dreads: the door opened and I arrived on the scene to spoil everything for you.

I want you to know something, though. Your pain is my pain, too. Because, see, when you sit there in nervous silence, your bare ass hovering over the toilet seat, so close yet so far from sweet release, you put a burden on me as well.

I see your feet under the stall and yet I hear no noise, which means that no bodily waste is being deposited into the toilet where it belongs. I am now presented with two options: politely turn and leave so you can poop in peace and quiet, or choose a stall at least one away from you (if possible) and do my business as quickly as I can so you can get back to yours.

But today, I would like to choose a third option. I would like to relieve myself in a normal timely manner, and I propose that you do the same.  Your poop has its own energy or life force, if you will. Its natural environment is in the toilet. Why don't you send it home? (Yes, I did just expand the metaphor from Happy Gilmore to taking a shit, and yes, that is pretty cool. So I thank you for that).

What are you afraid of? Is it the sound? Is it the smell that will alert me to the fact that you have emptied your bowels and therefore are, dare I say, human? Well, fear not my fellow woman. I am not here to judge. I, like you, am here to use the restroom and then go on living my life.

With this letter, I ask of you this favor: don't hold back your poops on my account. Be confident. Don't flush the toilet over and over or put the pressure on me to run the hand dryer to drown out the noise. Save us from this never-ending silent poop war. Do your business. Be strong. Be you. Take that poo.

Sincerely,

A Fellow Human Woman