Taking Care of Business

“Look at her…” my wife calls to me, “Huh-wha?” I turn to look at my 18-month old daughter with one hand on the edge of the couch and the other hand a balled up fist on her side. Her face turns pink then red and you can hear the faintest grunt coming from her clinched teeth. “She’s doing her business”, my wife says with a smirkish grin.

The etymology of "business" refers to the state of being busy, but in the bathroom? Is there more to the one discreet type of business that most of us on this planet share? A few things have advanced and modernized since the day of the outhouse, however, things today are definitely heading in a different direction than most might think or care to admit. Ever walk into a bathroom and see a newspaper mounted behind a glass panel? You’ll find yourself with a few seconds to catch up on those sport’s scores you may have missed the day previous. Or, even better at nicer cafés and restaurants now days you can find a LCD or even HDTV mounted on or in the wall to take your mind off ‘your’ business and keep you moving with ‘real’ business.

There are more than a handful of us who are guilty of carrying out cell phone calls and/or e-mails while carrying out our own ‘personal’ business in the bathroom. While some may say this is shocking or the bathroom is no place for such nonsense, but how long has society as a whole used the bathroom as their own personal library? Reading the newspaper, a magazine or book while in the bathroom is no new phenomenon for sure. So why wouldn’t other things that occupy our attention eventually find themselves in the bathroom with us as well?

As a frequent traveler, I get to experience the new craze of many hotels migrating to the change of room and bathroom décor. It seems to be a mission for a lot of well established hotel chains to modernize the typical boring hotel room and bathroom layouts of the past. Some of these new hotel designer name amenities are even available in room catalogs to personalize our own homes similar to this hip stylish architecture. While there is nothing quite like the privateness and solitude of being in my own bathroom at home, I tend to enjoy the new style in hotel bathroom architecture, it’s refreshing and comfortable.

Big business (manufacturing that is) has reported an increase in modernizing simple things in the bathroom from LCD screens imbedded in mirrors, to heated and selectable sprays built into toilets with controllable computer panels. Even waterproof speakerphone and full touch screen computers can be installed in the shower. The days of leaving work at the office seems to be dead and gone. As technology continues to surface ways to keep us in tune anywhere and at anytime, why wouldn’t today’s most convenient technological advances (as wireless internet, slim LCDs) find their way into the bathroom?

I have always been passive about my own bathroom business, maybe a little too much, even as a child. Seems I was always prepared for a trip to the bathroom to prevent boredom or from staring too long at Grandma’s wall paper. But I know I am not the only one who has read the back of an air freshner can in an attempt to stay entertained in the bathroom. Now days I tend to be more of a connoisseur of bathroom layouts and time spent within. Personally with so much time at work spent on managing projects, answering calls, etc. I sometimes find myself planning for bathroom business like I would a meeting… ‘I am going to answer that e-mail; check movie reviews for this weekend, text message my wife to pick something up,’ and on and on. Sound crazy? I would bet most would not likely admit their own personal bathroom habits but regardless it’s obvious that I am not the only one that is handling multiple ‘business’ ventures simultaneously. And furthermore, I consider it using my personal time more efficiently.

Of course maybe I just think too much, maybe I just should get my bathroom business over with as quickly as possible then return back to real business? The general perception of most peoples’ bathroom time must be spent in solitude and quietly without any interference from any kind, right? Or could it be similar to the cliché of master engineering ideas and concepts designed on napkins in taverns, same as in bathroom business? It’s quite possible to say the least.

So the next time you hear a cell phone ring in the stall next to you, or someone making a call, or punching keys firing e-mails or text messages off; remember that each of us have a choice to how we spend our bathroom business time. So turn the page on your newspaper or magazine while sitting on the throne, and remember that guy typing on the laptop in the stall next to you might just be the guy who wrote this article.

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