What's the deal with multiple toilet flushings?

In my place of work the bathrooms technically have low flow toilets, but they are flushometer (not tank) toilets and the flush on them is prodigious and is capable of sucking down a medium size dog. I still occasionally find myself sitting next to someone who will flush as many as 6 times in as many minutes. I have always attributed this to some sort of OCD behavior. Once, in my youth, I asked someone about this; “Hey Spanky, what’s with all the flushes?” (it was during a drought and I was a wise ass kid, so it might have appeared confrontational). After telling me to fuck off, he rattled on about “courtesy flushes”. I have gotten older and less able to defend myself, so I keep my own counsel in the bathroom.

There are also many people who flush before they sit down, lest any filth (or snakes) be lurking in the depths below. I have a friend who engages in this behavior and when I asked him about it, he said “I like a clean bowl”. I remember reading about a pair of identical twins separated at birth who, when they were reunited late in life, discovered that habit as one of the things they shared. So I gather it is a genetic tendency.

I think our shit is like our children; we like having them, but we don’t want them to hang around too long.

I am guilty of this practice. I need to flush to cover up the sounds when I am in a public bathroom. I keep flushing until I am done, wipe and flush again.

I think this is what is happening.

Yep, I flush to cover up sounds, too. I don’t want anyone to hear me fart or grunt! And I don’t want to hear them, either.

I try to wait them out, but sometimes they just won’t leave!. I’ve been known to hang around a nearby printer until all the chatty Cathy’s get out of the damn bathroom. Don’t talk to me in the bathroom!!!

Considering what’s been on the news lately about public bathroom behavior—maybe us straight people are just clueless.

Flush. Tap tap tap. Flush. It’s like Morse code.