DINNER CONVERSATION . . .

Over bowls of pasta on a Saturday night, JW put the following question to the table: do you use the toilet while speaking on the phone with someone? The resounding consensus: it depends on who "someone" is.

Now, I personally don't care if you are doing #1 or #2 while you're talking on the phone with me. Most times, I don't even care if I can hear you. Don't forget, I come from a family where almost all doors are open at almost all times because we don't wanna miss nuthin'. Plus, we're all so ADHD that sometimes, the only way to have a coherent conversation with each other is to catch someone while they're on the can. Anyway. TMI.

But for everyone else in the world, we determined that they fit into one of a few distinct phone-toilet categories:

1. No Warning, With Flush: applies to non-squeamish family members only. C'mon. Your parents changed your diapers, wiped your snotty nose, and held your head while you puked. Your siblings have probably seen you in worse condition, and then you had to implore them not to tell your parents. Enough said.

2. Warning, With Flush: applies to non-squeamish long-term significant others, and close friends with sharp senses of humor. If you gotta go, you just go. You interrupt briefly with "I'm taking you with me." The other party knows better than to gasp in shock, "Are you PEEING while talking to me on the PHONE?!" When you're done, you flush as normal. Your phone partner will comment wryly, "That was LOVELY. You feeling better now?" There will be mutual chuckling before regular conversation resumes.

3. No Warning, No Flush: applies to squeamish family members, long- or short-term significant others, and humorless close friends (although I doubt the closeness of any friend I can't pee in front of). You do your thing. You hope they don't hear you. If they do hear you, your squeamish mother will scold you for disrespecting her on the phone, your short-term love will leave you for being crude, your long-term love will remind you what s/he told you before about peeing on the phone, and your friends will wonder what they did to deserve this. But whatever happens, don't forget to flush later, after you've hung up. Otherwise, grossness ensues.

4. Options Offered: applies to generic friends. This is the old standby: "I gotta go -- you wanna come with, or you wanna hold, or you want me to call you back?" I mean really, at this point, they're imagining you on the toilet anyway so they might as well say "take me with you," but there's always going to be that one friend who just can't handle the intimacy, so you have to call him or her back. Whatever. Take your time. Wash your hands thoroughly. Use some hand lotion. Clean your room. Make a sandwich. Then get back on the phone.

5. Hold It and Squeeze: applies to job interviews, your pastor, your boss, the person from the phone company who put you on hold. Sorry, there's just no getting around it. Best of luck to you . . .

And a small caveat to all of the above categories:
6. Public Restroom Restriction: DO NOT talk on the cell phone while squatting on the can in a public restroom. Your gabbing in the stall next door is ruining my concentration or relaxation, whatever the case may be. The echo off the linoleum walls is excruciatingly loud. The other people in the restroom don't care about your new shade of lipstick or the mean thing that Bobby said to you the other night at your second cousin's wedding in New Jersey. Please, I beg you, just don't do it.

In conclusion, I think our dinner conversation topics are very bizarre. Thank you.