I had my mobile with me so I quickly engaged in some quick intel-gathering (that floor had only one department, with only so many people) and texted a colleague, "someone's in the washroom with me, who's missing from the office?"
I must not be seen. To be seen meant the disgrace of my ninja-hood.
That someone went into the cubicle one away from mine (good that she knows washroom etiquette) and ...rubbed her clothes together. Obviously, I couldn't see what she was doing but it sounded like she went in there to give part of her attire a good dry scrubbing. No response came from my accomplice, I still did not know who that person was.
This was getting interesting. What did she come here for, if not for depository purposes? Why was she there and what did she want?
I was almost ready to get out, but it might mean exposing my identity and worse, making eye-contact and perhaps awkward bathroom small talk. But I could wait: inaction is also an action.
Alas, my bathroom strategist seemed to have the same idea!
Thus I flushed, abandoning my Tortoise Strategy in favour of the Rabbit Manoeuvre and signalled my desire to quit the place. Perhaps she would succumb to conventional bathroom etiquettial pressures and stay within her stall like a good bathroom ninja - but who would have guessed that when I did she too.
I should have anticipated that she would rely on the paranoid sensors that took it upon themselves to gush another one after you were done. Perhaps she too wanted to know who was the mysterious occupier of that one stall: the direct nemesis to my cause of remaining bathroom-anonymous.
I had underestimated my cunning colleague.
Our eyes met. Her white throne flushed.
Thus. I smiled and said hello, conceding this round to my opponent. You won this round, Karen. But next time, I shall out-ninja you when we next not meet again.
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