Dilemma

I've always found it a bit gross when a co-worker walks by my office, obviously headed for the bathroom, with the newspaper tucked under their arm. Maybe it's the implied announcement, "I'm on my way to take a crap". Not that I have a problem with reading in the bathroom, per se. I wouldn't mind if my employer had a magazine and newspaper rack installed in the bathroom. It's specifically the "walking to the toilet with the paper tucked" that irks me.

So the other day, towards the end of the work day, I went to the bathroom. On my way out, I noticed a pristine copy of that day's Post lying on top of the discarded paper towels in the waste bin. After handlessly checking it out for foulness, I grabbed it, tucked it under my arm, and left the loo.

As I walked out, my first thought was that I would tell my assistant, as I passed her on the way back to my office, that I had not, in fact, gone to the bathroom with the newspaper (she knows how I feel about that).

But that meant I would have to tell her how I got it. That I fished it out of the bathroom garbage. I didn't know which possibility was more disgusting (I thought of George Costanza eating an eclair out of his girlfriend's garbage).

I ended up telling her the whole story, including my thought process. She seemed OK with it.

I probably should've just sprung for the 25 cents and bought a new paper on my way to the subway.