Horrid Confessions VII:

I call him the sniffler. Constantly sniffling.


Who is he? What could possibly be wrong with his sinus cavities? There is no possible way that every time I.......

Right,....story. Okay. Well, my confession is the lesser of two evils in this case. We'll get to that a little later. First let's setup the scenario.

On one hand you have me, who constantly walks with all his might like a man on speed after watching a Richard Simons workout video everyday of my life. I don't know what my problem is. I have a tendency to get annoyed with people who seem to have all the time in the world when they are walking somewhere. So that seems to be one of my deals. It annoys my fiance to no end, because I literally will leave her in the dust sometimes. I apologize, time is precious. I'll have plenty of time to slow down in the latter stages of my life.

I walk like this to my college after work, and I get there in a pretty good sweat. I especially love the people who choose to use the escalator up the stairs before they get to the school. I always take the manual stairs, and I derive great pleasure in beating the people walking up the escalator. Like I've tried my best for God. I know, sick.

So, to cool off with the hour to half an hour before class, I enjoy going to the school bathroom and either reading on the toilet, or studying on the toilet. That way I'm completely relaxed and comfortable for class.

There have been some uncomfortable moments along the last couple of years. I had one of the school security guards peering at my stall. I could see his face through the cracks. "Is there a problem," I said. He exclaimed that he was just doing rounds, and nervously left.

But, this past semester and throughout the summer there has been an incident that has happened an impossibly fair amount of times. I get to the bathroom, and I sit down and he is either already in another stall, or he comes in while I'm there. He goes into a bathroom stall and it begins.....*sniff*....*sniff*.....*sniff*.....*sniff*. Over and over, and over. All the while he is pulling toilet paper off the roll. It is maddening, and I've changed the locals of the bathrooms. To no use, it still winds up happening again.

A few times he has been in the stall directly beside me and he wears white sneakers with a blue Converse logo. All the while sniffling away, and pulling off ridiculous amounts of toilet paper off the roll. I imagine him stuffing it into a book bag or something, anything. I don't know! Why are you sniffing so much! What is the deal with the toilet paper! What kind of allergy could possibly cause someone to sniffle that many times. His sinuses must be raw hollow cavities. I've had to stick one of my fingers in my (ear) just to be able to enjoy my secluded public bathroom reading time, because the repetitive sniffing would begin to drive me insane.

I've come so close to screaming in the bathroom, and here is the kicker, he always out waits me. I've never seen him. I'm telling you there have been times where he has come in right after me and I had an hour before class started, and I put myself through the torture of listening to him sniffle and pull the roll of toilet paper to nothing just for the chance to have him come out of the stall first. No use, I had to get to class. He won, and still wins.

Through the times I've imagined Rod Serling type fantasies that maybe this person is someone I'm fatally destined to meet under the worst of circumstances. Maybe it's just my imagination getting away from me. But it does seem odd to a severe degree. You'd have to experience it to appreciate where I'm coming from. I've been wanting to post something about it for a long time, I just hadn't thought of a way to come about it.