it’s not the only reason i don’t shave my nipples after washing up at mcdonald’s, but it doesn’t give me any incentive to do so
20 09 2007Cameras are absolutely everywhere these days. While they’ve always been prevalent in banks and department stores, now they’re in restaurants, parking lots, on top of traffic lights, and even built right into your super-sleek new cell phone. We’re used to being watched, sometimes even in dressing rooms at clothing retailers. Where cameras haven’t ventured (yet) is into public bathrooms.
Or so They would have you believe. I have what could probably be considered an irrational fear that there are hidden cameras behind the mirrors in public bathrooms. When I am washing my hands or checking to make sure I don’t have any crap in my teeth, I feel like I’m being watched. I know it’s a little ridiculous and that it’s not actually the case, but I’m still highly conscious of it whenever I’m there. Who would want to tape that? No one. The worst offense they might catch someone doing is leaving without washing their hands or urinating on the toilet paper in a stall (which I might have done once or twice when I was an incorrigible youth).
To be perfectly honest, it’s not just public bathrooms that make me wonder about this. If I’m in someone’s home for the first time, I might try to peek behind the back of the mirror in the bathroom to see if there’s a noticeable hole in the drywall. It’s retarded. I’m retarded. However, I suspect the majority of you reading this are also retarded in your own special ways. Now’s the time to share your “tinfoil hat” theories with the rest of the group.
OMG! I’m always looking for a little red light or a gleam off of the lense. I expect to find the camera behind an air vent. And there have been several cases that perverts have recorded women in public bathrooms, and if you think the perverts are only taping women then, you guys best think twice when you are pulling out your think tank to relieve yourself. PERVERTS could be watching! We have one camera in the hallway at our office… are there more?? Probably. Paranoid? I don’t think so.
I think we all are secretly paranoid about someone watching or taping us in a public restroom. I can’t say it has never happened and who knows what will happen in the future, none of us do. Just make sure to always smile in the mirror on the way out :).
On of my ’special features’ is my empathy towards inanimate objects. For instance I feel sorry for my cordless phone when it hasn’t been on the charger for long periods of time. When I was young if one of my GI Joe’s was by itself I would get him a buddy because I felt like he was lonely. I only wish I were joking.
My secret paranoia is actually that the maintenance men in every apartment complex I have ever lived in have installed video feeds in my apartment and are watching me. I can barely handle being nude in the tanning bed rooms because the walls never go all the way up to the ceiling. People could be watching, I always look to see faces. I’m also extremely paranoid about hearing noises in my apartment at night. I will get up out of bed at some of the slightest noises to make sure no one is trying to kill me.
And here is the real bad one…a plane crashed in another country somewhere (I want to say Thailand or something?) the other day. And I was relieved!! I know how bad this is about to sound and if you know anyone killed in a plane crash stop reading this now, but I always kind of secretly hoped that within several weeks of me having to fly somewhere, a plane crashes somewhere else. Simply because it greatly reduces the statistical probability that the plane I’m on will crash. There haven’t been very many plane crashes since 9/11, and I noticed there hadn’t been any in quite awhile. I am flying to FL next month and just wanted the odds of me getting there and back alive to stay up. With this crash, they are way up. That’s really bad.
Maybe that is an irrational fear, not so much a strange paranoia, but this is my oddness in full force.
If you ever want to hear them, I also have a whole bunch of government conspiracy theories. Good ones. Well I don’t know who killed JFK, but still, they are pretty good.
There is a movie called “Copycat.” We watched it years and years ago (zesty you may have even been with me at the time??) Anyway..in the movie a woman is going to the bathroom and a man was hiding in the stall next to her by standing on the toilet. The camera shows him stepping down in his big, black boots while the tense music begins. He proceeds to throw a rope over the side of the stall and hang her. She didn’t die but she was emotionally damaged. So that’s my bathroom fear. Being hanged, which I believe may be crazier than the camera behind the mirror thing. But I can’t help it. I try to avoid public restrooms and to find restrooms with individual stalls or where the walls on each stall go up to the ceiling. yikes. seriously.
I guess I don’t think about this so much since my life is about as uneventful as anyone’s can get so I figure if someone IS watching me, they’d be bored to tears in about a nanosecond and probably give up the viewing.
I am curious and find it astounding that I can g00gle any one of you and just about see you at your front door but we still can’t find O$ama…they’re kidding me, right? Speaking of conspiracy theories…
Steph: You make me laugh about the plane crash thing. I sort of feel the same way…until I start realizing that the odds of me being killed in my car are about a bizillion times higher than the plane crashing…but I’m not scared to drive…
Captain: I saw that movie, too! I still check stalls in airports, restaurants, the mall, my work, you name it…I look in each stall on either side before I enter!
Okay, so we’re all fearful and irrational…
I think you are ALL missing the point. “The Man” has the eye in the sky just as predicted in 1984 and they can zoom in and catch you mowing the lawn and oh yeah, I’ll bet they can turn up the bell tone device and listening to our b.s. complaining at the dinner table with digital quality. What really concerns me is they also know where damn near every dime we make/mint is coming from and going to. Barter may be the only safe thing to do and then there is that annoying eye thingy going on. Yup, they know all of our spending habits, clothes sizes, diet, drinks and whether or not you take a good crap daily or need help with that. Think they are not reading every fucking word of this now? Right toe! Anyway, thats what scares me. They are in complete control and whether you like it or want to admit it, its nearly predestinationism at this point boys and girls. They probably have more freedom in Africa right now simply because “da man” dont have the technohow to follow all the remaining tribes. Fortunately, although I dont like it I aint real worried either because I am a conformist at this juncture in life. I am what “the man” feeds on…..middle class white guy paying an outrageous amount of taxes to feed the politiburo and their need for endless retirement revenues. Shit!
As for hidden cameras, my policy is to never make woopie in someone else’s house - ya never know. (Luv your blog, btw).
Well I must say I’m surprised at all the talk here about secret tapeing and my view has always been ” So What” what is it people are doing that they don’t want seen?
The best argument has been ” I just don’t want to be spyed on.” well if it honestly bother you I have even worse news……we live in a time and place were it is necessary to watch everyone.
You’d be damn happy to find out there was a video of someone in public if you were ever involved in a situation were say…your child was missing or something of that nature.
We have way to many open ended laws to protect “Crazy” people that I for one like the idea of watching everything.
1984 told us it would happen, they just left out the true reason why it would happen.