In college I was once accused of cheating on a programming assignment by calling the TA for assistance. The truth was, I was sitting in the bathroom when the flash of brilliance hit me and the bug was found.

Shortly after that, the stall on the right, second from the rear became my thinking stall. I even went back there to "think" during one of my last trips back to Seattle. Same water guzzling toilet, same whitewashed stalls. Only the soap dispenser no longer had that gritty concoction that likened washing your hand with dirt. And the paper towels were still like drying your hands with bark.

I wonder how many others sat in that stall going over pages of print outs. Or how many people precariously balance a notebook on their knees while trying to understand the intricacies of a linearly linked list algorithm?

The bathroom is more than just a please to clean the dirt off our body and scrape the tartar off our teeth. It is a place where we can look in the mirror naked - and be honest with ourselves. Whoever came up with the term "Bathroom Scale" really knew what they were talking about.

Even when alone in the house, I am compelled to "lock" the bathroom door. I think it gives me an innate sense of security. That as long as the door is locked (which anyone with a toothpick can open), I can bend over to clean the jam from my toes without having to worry about who is looking at my love handles.

We ALL pick our noses in the bathroom. We ALL smell ourselves in the bathroom. Anyone who claims they don't is not in touch with reality.

For me, the bathroom goes beyond what I wrote above. It is a place of solitude. A white room with that light lemon-pine-sol smell that's so antiseptic that I feel like my brain is cleaned. Anyone who knows me knows that I do my best thinking on the throne. I strongly believe that my next greatest revelation will be just inches away from a roll of triple-ply-aloe-Vera-Cottonelle. By the way, that is so hard to find, whenever I see it, I always stock up.

Here's my theory:

(A) Garbage in, garbage out.
(B) One man's garbage is another man's gold.
(C) Therefore, garbage in, gold out.

You can take that to the crapper. If you ask, I may tell you about a corollary to that theorem.