So I'm sitting there doing my post lunch thing, knocking out the Sudoku and moving onto the crossword when I hear like what seems to be the umpteenth flush from the stall next door. And then another flush followed in rapid succession by two more flushes. It was at that point that I knew concentrating on the Thursday crossword (which at this point in the week becomes very difficult for this less than crammed full of brain cells crossworder) was futile. So I started keeping a tick sheet on the number of flushes. I was getting alarmed when he was approaching ten very quickly. When I started keeping score, I figured that he only had about ten more flushes in him (for comparison purposes--I only flush once at work because the pressure is really good and knocks down even the most stubborn of craps), but it was immediately apparent that he was going to sail right by the over/under.

I know that we are lucky to live here in California. By the grace of (insert the deity of your choice here) and the rain that we get, we walk a very narrow precipice in this fragile environment. We literally sit with our ass over the cliff and because of a lack of attention to infrastructure regarding our water supply, we are one significant drought away from disaster. I lived here during the 70's and remember the damage that was caused when the skies failed to produce. It's only a matter of time before it happens again.

So when I see someone wasting water, leaving the faucet running, over sprinklering, cannonballing all the water out of the pool, etc. it kind of makes my skin crawl. So almost involuntarily, after the tick sheet reached 20 flushes in a matter of minutes, I finally uttered a, "oh come on. What the hell is going on over there?" And then silence quickly followed by another flush to which I responded, "seriously?"

"Are you talking to me," a gruff voice returned. I was now picturing somebody very big who ate spicy big food for lunch.

"Are you okay over there? Do you need me to get help for you," I responded trying to backtrack from my complete and total breach of bathroom etiquette. I normally avoid confrontations as if it's HIV or something.

And to my horror he shot back, "why don't you mind your own fu@#ing business!" And then he fired off three flushes in random succession but the second one didn't fire on account of the fact that the toilet didn't have time to recharge.

With courage I don't usually summon I said, "you're wasting a lot of water and that affects me." And then I called him an enviro-terrorist (but I think that is usually reserved for someone that does harm or damage to somebody they perceive as being dangerous to the environment). At the time I thought it was pretty clever. I got no response from the terrorist.

But now I had some concerns. My business was finished but I really didn't want to meet this guy out by the sinks so I waited for him to finish and leave. I also noodled through the fact that he might bust down my door and with me sitting there with my pants at my ankles, well, I didn't really like that option all that much. But I stayed put and continued with my tick sheet. I counted more than 40 flushes at 6 gpf's. That's what it says on the toilet so I'm assuming that it means 6 gallons per flush. That's 240 gallons of water down the sewer. That's like three big hot water heaters full of water. Crap all mighty! Anyway, disturbing to say the least. Hope you are well and a little more environmentally conscious than my bathroom mate this afternoon.

Johnny GoFast