There's No "I" In Team - Part I

A friend this morning told me she was going in for "Evacuation Team" training. Now, I know that's training for a safety team, making sure the building is cleared efficiently in the case of emergency. But you know that wasn't the first thing that phrase brought to my mind. I heard "Evacuation Team", and I immediately imagined 6-8 women out to eat at a restaurant all getting up to go to the bathroom at the same time. Like it's an Olympic event. They're going to be graded on teamwork and how synchronized their motions are with a panel of judges sitting by the ladies room door ready to hold up score cards.

That got me thinking about the bathroom, and men and women in general. We are so different, even in this respect. I can really only tell you things as seen from a man's perspective, but I'll try to be fair.

• Women are social - Way more social than men.
  

• I mean, this is obvious. They synchronize and move as a pack, effectively smashing men out of the way as they move en mas toward the bathroom door. They guard the door for each other if necessary, watch purses and pocketbooks, and the whole thing is completed with a minimum of fuss, there and back again, like it was all planned out beforehand. And they ran drills. It's almost military in its precision, but can also be as graceful as a choreographed dance number.
  
  
  
• Men couldn't do this. We would be so busy trying to decide what order to go in, who was with whom, when we should go, who was the undisputed field leader of this little excursion, and then everything would break down as we dragged out maps and diagrams to argue over the route we should take. Once we had settled on a route, nothing would cause us to deviate from that route.

• A server putting down a tray in the aisle? 
• No.
• A church group has pushed two or three tables together and everyone is around the table holding hands while the HPIC (Head Priest In Charge) says grace? 
• Tough, we're going through.
• Someone back at the Table got a map or a diagram upside down, and accidentally plotted out a course that will take us through the kitchen? 

• We're Men dammit! Put down that spatula and get out of the way, Cookie, we go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom at home and we'll damn well do it here!

And all this is just on the way to the bathroom! Once we get there it's a whole other mess. I'll try to tackle that little pickle tomorrow.

Talk to you later!