Just Hear Those Sleigh Bells Ringin’; or, It’s Like Lysol for the Ears

“We should find a more grassroots way to communicate in this office.”

I scowl, just a bit.  “Grassroots?  What, like passing notes in homeroom?”

He scowls back, just a bit, because he’s funny that way.  “Something like that, yes.”

I nod.  “I’ve been known to post comments in the women’s bathroom.”

He laughs.  “You haven’t!”

I grin.  Maybe I shouldn’t be so forthcoming with my boss.  “Do you know there’s a radio in the women’s bathroom?”

He nods.  “I do.”

I narrow my eyes at him.  He gives me the yes-yes-go-on motion.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I say, “but the radio’s mine.  And when I put it in there, I posted a little sheet, printed it out and taped it to the wall.  What do you think of having a radio in here?  Leave your comments.”

I take a sip of my coffee.  “So I go in there the next day, and it’s absolutely littered with commentary.  “This is cool – tired of hearing you pee!” and “What is this, a thing?” followed by “And what are you?  A thing?”

I take another sip.  “My favorite comment was the one that said something like she liked the idea, she just would prefer a station that didn’t have “a guy talking”, that it freaked her out.  Sounds like a guy is coming through here, she wrote.”

Josh laughs.  “A guy?  Talking?  Is she referring to the DJ?”

“Exactly.  Apparently DJs are outside of her experience.”

Josh nods.  “It’s an iPod generation,” he chortles.

I stare out the window.  The spectacular view has been visually muffled by the snow that started falling before we came in this morning and will continue, ostensibly, until March.

“May I ask you a question?”

I look at him.  “Yes.”

“Just why did you feel the need to bring a radio to the women’s bathroom?”

“Well,” I say.  “May I be frank?”

He nods.  “You may be frank.  You may also –“ and I am suddenly reminded, strangely, of my father –“ be earnest.”  He nods, satisfied with himself.   “You may be Frank and Ernest.”

I grin.  “There are four toilets.  Sometimes, you get the right women in there, all four stalls will be occupado, and no one will “go”, if ya know what I mean.”

He nods.  He does, indeed, know what I mean.

“So I thought a radio might be a distraction.  Let people relax a little.”

A bemused look creeps across his face.

“What,” I say.

“Well, if I may now be Frank?”

I wave a magnanimous hand at him.  “Be whoever you need to be.”

He grins at me.  “I thought it was because the men’s bathroom was so close.”

I stare at him.

“Potential, uh, sounds,” he says.

I laugh out loud.  “You thought the women’s bathroom acquired a radio because of we were tired of the sounds coming from the men’s bathroom?”

He smiles, raises his own cup of coffee.  "Well," he says, leaning in for a sip, "when you put it like that, it seems rather silly."