The other day I learned in crystal-clear, surround-sound audio that some people text while on the toilet doing a poo.

This epoophany came about when I frequented the toilets at work. Now, these loos are the communal-type – not meaning boys and girls, but they service the entire floor, which is made up of a number of different and diverse businesses.

This is an interesting dynamic in itself, because the chances of bumping into someone you work with is quite slim so I must admit there’s probably more “number two” action than normally would take place during the hours of nine to five.

On that note, why is it that the walls of cubicles in so many public loos don’t go all the way to the floor? Cost-saving measures? In my opinion, they really should so everyone can just get “on with business” with some modicum of pride.

In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than, after making a break for the toilet when nature’s calling big-time and thankfully finding it empty, you suddenly hear someone entering the facilities when, you know, you’re halfway through. And you have to freeze and wait and wait and wait for them to leave, which seems to take an eternity at that particular point in time. The joys of workplace toilets, right?

Anyway, on this day, I was in one of the cubicles when I heard something rather strange happening in the stall next door. Someone still had that clicking noise activated on their mobile phone so I could hear they were texting someone – while on the toilet. Then all of a sudden the texting stopped and the person’s bowels opened very loudly. Obviously, unlike me, she had no qualms about the length of the cubicle walls.

Then the texting started again – all the while her bum farted and burped like a colon opera because she clearly believed she was actually in our own home all alone. She wasn’t. By this stage, I’d exited my cubicle and was washing my hands. I was also thinking: “Really? Is texting while you’re doing a poo a thing today? Was the message so urgent that she had to kill two birds with one stone in the office loos? Did the person receiving the ‘poo-text’ know that it was created in such a scatological fashion?” I dried my hands, and to the sound of more bum-gas explosions, exited the facilities with a quizzical look on my face.

Now I can understand parents of small children having to resort to such tactics, although their time on the loo isn’t necessarily always sacrosanct, but at work? Surely no text has that degree of urgency?

To say I was poo-plexed is an understatement so I turned to my 12 and 13-year-old nieces, who aren’t related to me by blood but whose mum is my bestie, the following week and “delicately” asked them: “Is texting while doing a poo okay to you?” and without skipping a beat they said in unison “yes”. Silly aunty, they laughed, everyone does it. Of course, I was morally outraged. “What has the world come to?” I cried. “Where’s the dignity?”

And so it came to pass that yet again, I learned that I might be getting a tad older – and a little “wiser” about such modern-day shenanigans. Seemingly, according to the young folk, texting while you’re in the loo doing a poo isn’t a biggie – I guess, unless you accidentally hit FaceTime while you’re in the middle of it.