preposition

[1] Without lamenting the lack of a useful gender-neutral third-person pronoun in english or explaining why you're an idiot if you think "theirself"[2] is the appropriate word to put here, i will point out that all of the janitorial and maintenance staff are male, which means that every morning, around 1100, there is a knock at the far women's bathroom door and a janitor saying, "Hellooooooo" to make sure he doesn't walk in on whatever crazy naked things women do in bathrooms that men aren't allowed to see. I will also point out that i get to hear this every morning because i still sit right next to the goddamn women's bathroom, in the hallway, with no window.

This is, admittedly, sometimes interesting, because a few weeks ago some female 'Tagger had a teary conversation on her cell phone. In the bathroom. Nothing like the endless echoing of your sobs against hard tile walls to comfort you in the midst of emotional crisis. Or to comfort the four people in earshot of the women's bathroom out in the engineering sector.

[2] Or "themself" or -- even worse -- "theirselves"? "Themselves"? Do you realize how stupid you are? God, i hate you.
Posted by tyler at May 2, 2004 02:01 PM