Step One - Entry
Here's a pointer that applies to ANY door with no window: always assume there's someone standing within swinging range on ther other side and DON'T open it like Rambo would. Some extra-special geniuses (including D.H.'s employer) mount their paper towel dispensers to where a person has to stand within the door's swinging range to dry their hands.
Upon entry, your first task is to GLANCE around - and I do mean GLANCE - using your peripheral vision as much as possible and try and determine if you're alone. Remember - your primary goal at this stage is to identify any others and to AVOID EYE CONTACT at all costs.
NOTE: this is the last chance you will have to ABORT with zero residual awkwardness, so depending on the identities of those you might identify, you should ask yourself: do I really want to do this with THIS guy in here? If the answer is no (and I encourage you to err on the side of caution and ABORT if you're even slightly uncertain), initiate Operation: Abortion and turn to the sink and wash your hands. Do so confidently, as though that's the sole reason you came in to the bathroom in the first place.
Assuming you establish the presence of additional human life, and assuming you opt to NOT abort, this is the one circumstance where the most polite move involves not greeting the other party (or parties) in any way or even acknowledging their presence. Act like you haven't noticed them and prepare to move on to Step 2 - Navigation.
I don't care how badly you have to fart, either - now is not the time. Don't start farting.
Step 2 - Navigation
Step two starts off with an instant, immediate hardball decision: can I get in anywhere? You're basically taking into account your needs (#1 vs #2), comparing them with the current occupants of the restroom and available stalls/urinals (keep in mind that - although a stall can be used to satisfy either need [#1 or #2], that door does not swing both ways), and deciding if you can move forward. If not, exit.
Now, assuming you can move forward and you have options? You want to pick the unoccupied stall or urinal that is the furthest away from as many occupants as you can. Example - let's say we're looking at a wall of urinals; "X" represents an occupied urinal and "O" represents an unoccupied urinal:
O O X O
No brainer, right? You move far left:
X O X O
What about this scenario, where there are only three urinals:
O X O
That's right! Trick question. At first glance, you likely think it doesn't matter. But you haven't taken into account the position of the toilets!! You want to occupy the "O" furthest from the stalls now, since the position of the single urinal occupant is equidistant to all available options.
So, assuming the toilets/stalls are to the left, you would position yourself as such:
O X X
The same goes for deciding on a toilet/stall. The trick here is determining whether or not they're occupied. In many cases the doors will hang open just slightly if unoccupied. It may be necessary to test the door. If so, PUSH or tap the door, do not pull. If the door is unlocked, the bounceback from a light push will tell you so without flinging the door wide open. It also forces you to maintain a body position off to the side of the door, so even if it does swing open further than intended, you won't be staring directly inside. You never know - there may be someone in there who forgot to use the lock. You want to give both he and you time enough for him to cry out BEFORE you see him sitting there and you both make eye contact and your lives change forever.
DO: Keep your eyes dead-straight ahead of you or better yet - pointed at the ground. Move quickly, deliberately, and quietly.
DON'T: Talk to anyone. Acknowledge anyone with anything other than a nod (and only then if it's a diplomatic and/or political risk not to, such as your boss is present and he breaks protocol and greets you first). Peek through the cracks around the edges of a stall door to determine whether or not it's occupied. Start unzipping your pants. Start farting.
Remember: EYES FORWARD OR DOWN.
You want to walk in as straight a line as possible, allowing at least three feet of clearance between yourself and any other occupants. In other words, avoiding other occupants by at least three feet is your Prime Directive, with your Secondary Directive being walk in a straight line towards your destination. Here is a helpful acronym to help you remember - EWOK!
E – EYES down
W – WALK straight
O – OCCUPANTS avoided by at least three feet
K - you will get KILLED if you peek over the partition
Step 3 - Stepping up to the Plate
Once you arrive at your destination – remember, eyes down, walk straight, avoid other occupants – you need to stop two steps away from the porcelain (toilet or urinal) and take stock of your destination; particularly be on guard for hazards you hadn’t noticed from afar. You’ll want to note if there’s shit smeared all over the walls of the stall, for example, or (even worse) all over the toilet seat. Small problems – such as the water in the urinal being yellow – you may opt to correct yourself (in this example, you would simply flush). Large problems – such as a dead fetus floating in bloody toilet water – may cause you to deem your destination unusable. In this case, you need to make a decision: are there other available facilities, or should I just leave and return later? Always remember: there’s no shame in walking away and leaving a dead fetus floating in the toilet (unless you were his mother, of course…you should have flushed. Whore.).
NOTE for STALL OCCUPANTS ONLY: once inside the stall with the door closed behind you, your first move is to double-check that the door is locked, then push on it to make sure the lock is working. Your second move is to examine the cracks around the perimeter of the stall door. Is there space enough to see through? How much space? What you are ultimately trying to establish here is this: will you be visible through the cracks while seated on the toilet? The answer to this question affects how far you are permitted to drop your pants: if you are visible through the door, then you may only drop your pants to the area of your leg where butt becomes leg. At no point while seated (or any other time) may your pants drop below mid-thigh. If you’re completely concealed inside the stall…fuggit, drop those trousers around your ankles for all I care.
Assuming you opt to stay, the next steps are simple: you clear your throat (mandatory, helps you look laid back, which helps keep other occupants calm), you unzip your pants, and you close the two-step gap between you and your facility.
DO: remain calm. Keep your eyes fixed on the porcelain and immediate surroundings.
DON’T: Panic. Whip out the dong or drop pants until you’re flush against the porcelain. Talk to anyone, no matter how uncomfortable you are. This is particularly true if the person is using adjacent porcelain: you WILL be tempted to talk, if only to ease your own discomfort. DO NOT DO SO. You will be breaking Men’s Room Rule Numero Uno if you do: no talking with exposed junk, ESPECIALLY if your hands are in any way touching said exposed junk.
Step 4: Action
Your goal now is to simply relieve yourself as quickly as possible while attracting as little attention as possible. Yes, you may begin farting now, for example, but don't strain so hard in the interests of being quick that you fart louder than you normally would - this would attract unnecessary attention.
If you are having trouble, uhhh, getting things moving? This can be a delicate thing for urinal users in particular as toilet users are a) anonymous to other toilet users, provided all users follow all the rules here, and b) though not anonymous to urinal users, typical urinal use takes so little time that those who may have identified you will be long gone by the time it's apparent that you're struggling. For those urinal users, though - it can be a complete nightmare: you stand there, you're completely exposed, for whatever reason the pee isn't flowing...you flush...your pores dilate...you begin to perspire...you feel as though the lights have dimmed everywhere else in the bathroom except the light shining on you, which now feels like a spotlight...you feel everyone's eyes on you, judging you. Wondering if you have a kidneystone. Wondering if you have prostate cancer. Wondering if you can even satisfy your wife. Wondering what is WRONG with you??
I can't help you out of that situation, but I can advise you of this: no matter what the problem is, I guarantee the underlying condition (I include prostate cancer in this statement) is nowhere near as bad as having THAT happen again. See your doctor if it happens more than once and switch to stalls only: avoid urinal use entirely.
Oh, that's another thing - always aim your pee stream for the urinal "sweet spot," which is as far up the porcelain as you can go while still maintaining the loud noise of urine hitting water. You want everyone to know there's nothing wrong with you. Trust me.
Once finished, wipe thoroughly (if need be) and flush. If you're in a stall at the same time another stall is occupied, you may opt to postpone flushing if the other occupant flushes first. The goal is to give him time to exit before you emerge from your stall, thus protecting both your anonymity.
NOTE: this never happens while you’re standing at a urinal; for some reason – gratefully – this kind of thing only happens when you’re locked inside a stall. Sometimes, something completely insane will break out in the bathroom while you’re in a stall. When this happens, your strategy is always the same: WAIT IT OUT. Hide out in the stall and wait until the person causing the madness leaves.
Scenario one – you’re sitting there, minding your own business in an otherwise unoccupied bathroom, and someone comes in and immediately breaks protocol by selecting the stall directly next to yours. As soon as he sits down, you hear him chanting to himself a mantra in monotone: “I can do it – I can do it – I can do it – I can do it,” followed immediately by a bongo solo played with the palms of his hands either on the tops of his thighs or maybe his stomach. In this case, you’re best to not only wait it out, but also place a pause on your own business and try to escape notice. Wait for him to leave, then unpause.
Scenario two – you’re sitting there, again alone, and the door opens. This time you hear a bunch of ladies’ voices. Uh oh, you hung over idiot! You went into the wrong bathroom. Now you have to wait it out. Luckily, ladies don’t poop, so it probably won’t take long unless they came in to sixty nine each other. That could take all night.
Scenario three - the main door busts inward so hard it breaks off its hinges. A bunch of construction workers flood the bathroom and start rubbing each other’s bottoms. Music starts playing. Yeah – wait it out.
DO: Complete your business as quickly as possible without attracting undue attention to yourself. Keep your eyes forward AT ALL COSTS. Fart if need be. Aim for the urinal "sweet spot." Put your pants on correctly afterwards. Check to make sure there's no toilet paper stuck to your shoes.
DON'T: Talk to anyone, particularly to the person using the adjacent porcelain. Sing and/or hum.
ESPECIALLY DON'T: Peek over the urinal partition, or even turn your head such that the occupant of the adjacent urinal might suspect you're peeking. Remember - just because the law says he's not supposed to beat you to death with his bare fists doesn't mean a jury will convict him if they're made aware of the fact that he thought you might be peeking.
Step 5 - Exit Strategy
The Art of the Exit, I call it. This is more like a dance, or synchronized swimming at times, depending on how many occupants there are. The primary goal here is to deal with the bullshit handwashing laws that this totalitarian government insists on stuffing down our throats in such a manner that the time you spend at the sinks with any other restroom occupant is minimized and/or completely eliminated. Why?
Well, it all goes back to the eye contact rule. Remember how easy it was to avoid eye contact while you were adjacent to another user at the urinals? All you had to do was keep your eyes forward. Well, here it's a similar setup but with one major, dealbreaking difference: the giant mirror in front of you. You CAN'T look forward because your own reflection will be right in front of you...and standing right next to your reflection? HIS reflection. Remember - your eyes want to LOCK with every other person in the room. These rules are all about setting yourself up for success by eliminating or minimizing your exposure to their sightlines and vice versa. This is going to be no different.
Toilet users: I am gearing this section towards the urinal users for one main reason - toilet users are, as usual, encouraged to just wait it out. Stay seated until you're alone, or at least alone with the rest of the toilet users.
Urinal users: you are going to need to pay close attention to what's going on around you and adapt accordingly to minimize the potential that you & any other urinal occupant are going to flush at the same time (we refer to that moment as the German Standoff). If, for example, you hear the gent at the urinal to your right gritting his teeth and straining to force out a fire hose stream of urine, well...what does that tell you? It tells you that he's sending a message to you, and that message is this: I'm taking the lead, you bring up the rear. In this instance, what you would do would be to slightly pinch down on your shaft to restrict the flow of urine. Remember, once the urine is gone, it's gone and there's no justifiable reason for you to remain at the urinal. Don't blow your pee wad all at once, slow your roll and clamp down on that flow. Don't clamp down too tight, or you'll start sputtering and sound like one of those prostate weirdos. Deep breaths, restrict the flow, and aim for the sweet spot.
Let him race to the finish line: he'll finish up and wash his hands hopefully before the last few drops of your urine hit the toilet water.
The same goes for hearing a toilet flush. Granted, it's a breach of protocol on his part, but it happens occasionally, particularly when you don't aim for the sweet spot and the toilet occupant doesn't hear anything and therefore thinks he's alone. You're going to want to restrict the flow to a mere drizzle and pray to God that a) he does the right thing and hauls ass outta there once he realizes he's not alone, and b) your urine supply lasts until he's gone. Godspeed to you.
When the time comes to make your break for the sink, you're going to want to slam your dong back into your pants & zip as quickly as possible and beeline it for the sink: you never know when someone is going to walk in the door and take stock (outlined in step one above) and decide to ABORT (which means forcing a handwashing), which would put the two of you at the sink together at the same time. Minimize your risk by HURRYING. Get to that sink (make sure the 3' clearance rule remains in effect), hit the soap with one hand and the water with the other. Save time by rubbing the soap in while you're rinsing: not as effective, but you can wash your hands in the drinking fountain in the hallway later when the pressure's off. Dry your hands and GET THE FUCK OUT.
Mission accomplished, soldier. You make me proud. High-five! ...you did wash your hands...right???
A note on electric dryers, i.e. blow dryers: if you work in a place with these horrible things, your exit strategy is completely gimped as these devices force you to remain in place for ungodly lengths of time. I suggest you petition your employer to replace them with paper towels and - in the meantime - refuse to use it. Leave the bathroom with wet hands and dry them on your shirt later when no one is looking.
