Toilet Joe

At an office job I had a few years ago there was a guy named Joe who would creep everyone out.

It was widely known that he looked a porn on his computer, and liked to read in the bathroom. He was sweaty and overweight, with a bright red pimply face. He wore clothes that were probably okay on him about 50 pounds ago but now clung to him like cheese on doritoes. He drank a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew everyday, straight out of the bottle, lukewarm. He called me "dude".

The porn was one thing; he'd "hide" the images he was looking at on screen if he heard you walking down the hall and spin around in his chair and say something in a quick, nervous tone like "HeyDudeHowsItGoing."

One of the women in our office used to subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. Joe would ask to borrow it from time-to-time, she'd reluctantly say yes, and he'd head to the bathroom and read. He'd be in the bathroom for maybe a half-hour. When he was done, he'd bring it back. She would hold her hand up and say "uh... just keep it, Joe" with a look on her face like she was going to puke. This happened a few times. When he finally got the message, he started bringing manilla folders from his desk, files and things to the bathroom. After a few months of this our small office started gossiping about this weird behavior. It became a weird joke, a creepy annoyance that everyone hated but noone really wanted to stop, because it was just so odd. Once someone saw him bring a small calculator and pencils into the bathroom along with his files. Then there was his cell phone. The woman who's office was closest could hear him talking sometimes, and would hear the cell phone ringing. The bathroom visits became longer and longer. The woman who had the Entertainment Weekly subscription started timing him and writing the times down on a piece of paper next to her computer. Mostly these visits would take about 20 minutes, but on occasion he'd be in the bathroom for almost an hour.

One day he came out of the bathroom with a bundle of files and papers under his arms, a calculator, and a pencil behind his ear. He walked about 20 feet down the hall and then tripped face-down on the office carpet, spilling papers, calculator, and pencils all over the floor. People jumped up from their offices and looked out their doors, asking if he was allright.

"No, no, I'm okay.. thanks..." he was crawling and grabbing at his papers, dragging his legs across the floor in a weird wounded animal kind of way.

"My legs fell asleap. Ow. Hah. Hahaha." He said.

"Oh my God that's disgusting." the Entertainment Weekly woman said, turned around into her office and closed the door. Those remaining looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to thier offices, leaving Joe to shakily scramble his things together.