Laughing Off Public Indecency: The Unwritten Rules of Public Restrooms
Trigger Warning: Slightly Too Much Info Story Ahead
I’ve got a story that’s been sitting on the back burner lately. My cousin, Kuya Ken, invited me over to Sheraton Cebu Mactan Resort. He called me when I was just in the middle of my immediate resignation at Amazon Cebu. Since I had nothing going on at the time after resigning, I promptly got an Angkas to Mactan.
I’ve already shared the bulk of the stay on Instagram/Facebook back then, but what I left was the interesting part. We were at Savemore nearest Mactan airport because Kuya Ken wanted to buy pasalubong for relatives in Davao.
While we were at it, I got the urge to pee and asked Kuya Ken to wait with all the stuff at the pasalubong aisle. I asked for directions and quickly found it. As soon as I entered, I saw a man on the left urinal, so I went to the right urinal next to him since there was no third urinal in between.
From what I understood about the unspoken rules of peeing in the men’s CR is that one goes in:
- Pees
- Jiggles the pee out (Remember: "If you jiggle it more than 3 times, you're playing with it.")
- Washes your hands afterward
- Looks into the mirror
- Dries your wet hands with your pants
- Uses the remaining moisture on your hair
- Winks at yourself
- Does the finger guns
- Gets out
It should be a 30-second to 1-minute affair. Eyes at your pecker while peeing, and no wandering eyes. If you’re unsure what to do, staring at the wall in front of you is a safe thing to do. Anything that deviates from that will give you unusual looks.
I don't make the rules.
Anyway, from my peripheral vision, the other guy was doing something weird. Grunting and doing something weird with his penis. I thought he got it stuck on his pant zipper or maybe had kidney stones and therefore had trouble peeing properly. I didn’t look since it would deviate from what I understood to be the rules of manhood.
Once I was finished with my business, I washed my hands and saw the guy in the mirror’s reflection and didn’t think anything else about it.
Back to the pasalubong aisle, my cousin also had the urge to pee, so we switched places. I gave him instructions, reassured him I wouldn’t leave his baggage with his important documents, and then waved him away.
Around 5 minutes after using the restroom, I found Kuya Ken with a face like he’d seen a ghost.
Here's the thing: I totally missed it! I was just focused on the task at hand, completely oblivious to the situation next door.
Turns out, the guy next to him in the restroom wasn’t exactly... "following the unwritten rules." Let’s just say the guy was expressing himself a little differently than expected.
Conversation in Bisaya:
Kuya Ken: Ko, kita ka atong lalake sa CR?
(Miko, did you see that guy in the CR?)Me: Kato siya na dugay gapangihi? Naa pa siya diadto?
(The guy that’s been peeing for way too long? He’s still there?)Kuya Ken: O, wala man to nangihi, wala man ka nagsaba na naay ga lo lo!?
(Yes, he wasn’t peeing actually. Why didn’t you say that he was masturbating?!)Me: Ha, wala ko kabalo na ga inadto man diay siya. Murag ra man siya ug ga pass ug kidney stones.
(What? I didn’t know that he was doing that. He looked at me as though he was passing kidney stones.)Kuya Ken: Ahak, lami kaayo ingnan ‘Naunsa diay ka bay’?!
(Damn, I wanted to say to him, “What the f*** is wrong with you?!”)
He had a lot more raunchy things to say, but I don’t want this post to be as explicit as it could be. The gist was that he was trauma-dumping in the guise of us laughing it off. I was already nearing a year in Cebu and I was numb with how they leave their mental cases naked in public, so it didn’t faze me as it should.
I couldn’t be so sure about my cousin, and that’s his side of the story.
The guy might’ve been on drugs and wasn’t aware of his surroundings. The guy might’ve known we were there and got his rocks off (not kidney stones... haha) based on that fact. I don’t know really. It’s just a bunch of maybes.
And my cousin was asking why I didn’t give him a heads-up.
We tried to give a heads-up to the cashier/bagger, but it sounded weird as we were saying it, so we didn’t press into it as we should’ve.
The guard? Couldn’t even tell us straight that Savemore is the Pasalubong Centre on Google Maps.
I mean, we should’ve, but what’s the timeline of having to be witnesses for a sex deviant’s public masturbation criminal case? My cousin’s got a plane to catch.
Kidding aside...
What would you have done in this situation?
Would you have given your cousin a heads-up, or just kept it moving like me?
(Assuming that you would've also looked into the other guy's business.)