Adjacent Stall Usage

Alaric writes the following:

As like every morning I go into the bathroom to have my morning glory. This restroom is pretty big. It is at a government building and has 15 stalls (I counted them because of this). I was the only person in the room at the time so I selected a stall that was not in the middle and not at the end. I sat down and started my business when I hear the door open. Did not really care but this guy selects the stall right next to mine… Mind you that there are 14 EMPTY stalls. Then he proceeds to drop the biggest bomb known to man, this shit was so loud and forceful that his gas had echoes and it sounded like some was dumping out there sink in the toilet… Stunk to high hell.. This happened right next to me… Dude could have picked any damn toilet in the restroom but picks the one next to mine.

This has to be a breach of bathroom etiquette, like the one urinal rule. If there is 3 urinals and there is one guy on the end you take the one on the other end.

Good point. To a first approximation, stall usage mirrors urinal usage. You should never choose a stall adjacent to an occupied stall when another option is available. Now that said, there are a couple of notable exceptions:

1. When all the other stalls are occupied, it is perfectly fine, under normal circumstances, to take an adjacent stall. With urinals, this is only acceptable under exceptional circumstances.
2. When all the other stalls are disgustingly dirty, it’s also acceptable to take an adjacent stall.

While it’s possible 13 of the other 14 stalls were really dirty, it sounds like this individual was in gross violation of proper bathroom etiquette.