If someone besides me ever reads this blog then I hope that someone works in the hospitality industry because I’d really like to know why there are no fans in the bathrooms of hotels.

Maybe it’s just my own peculiar paradigm, but pooping is not a shared community event. It’s not a spectacle performed for the edification of others. It is not a monument left behind for the appreciation of the masses. There is no high-fiving, no raising of glasses, no shouting of olés.

(Although, like most guys, I have been known to brag about the occasional sub-continental size of a poop –

“Honey, you look tired. Is everything ok?”
“I’m fine baby. Just a little wore out. Just shat Asia, you know.”)

Again, perhaps my own paradigm, but I don’t wish to leave behind the sights, smells, or traces of my endeavors. I also don’t wish to broadcast the struggle – and for that I rely on the bathroom fan which, as noted, always seems to be missing from hotel bathrooms. Does anyone have insight into why this is so? Do hoteliers expect precision control of the anal apparatus? Knowing that without the comforting white noise of the fan that guests must proceed under duress and with great vigilance so as not to trumpet their intentions? Should this skill-set be ascertained at check-in?

“Smoking or non-smoking?”
“Non.”
“Double, queen, or king?”
“King.”
“Precision Anal Control?”
“Uhh…”
whispering: “I’m sorry sir, but it’s a question we simply must ask…”

Finally, when the moment of truth arrives, are the effects meant to be heard? Sans fan, there really is no choice, is there? Is it right that the only prospect for maintaining one’s dignity is to precede the affair with a giant wad of toilet paper strategically placed in the bowl so as to mute the effect? Because whether the delicate pianissimo plip-plip-plipping of plinkers or the robust ka-SPLOOSH of greater mass, a tiled hotel bathroom will amplify the affair and leave one, most likely, with a grossed out (or hysterically laughing) spouse/partner/significant other instead of the standing ovation and chorus of bravos so richly deserved.

I know it must appear, with this post following so soon on the heels of my post about bathroom etiquette, that I have a poop fixation. I assure you that is not true. But these questions do arise in times of crisis. So please, can someone clear this up for me?