Another Encounter with the Loo-Body

Like the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster, the Office Loo-Body seems mythically horrible until you encounter him/her.  After that, though, there's no going back. Years later, you may wander into a dilapidated bar in the middle of a demilitarized zone, plunck some cigars and a Rolex on the table, and when the waiter finally brings you your bootleg shot of neat scotch, you'll turn to the grizzled veterans swapping terror tales beside you and say, "Yes, Normandy was bad, but at least you didn't see the Loo-Body."

For example.  Two days ago, she loomed up at me in the hallway where the senior editors are known to hide while trying to furtively take phone calls in a building that conducts sound with all the gleefulness of the tin roof over a summer camp cabin.  Between two fingers, she pinched my arm.

"Is it your female time?" she asked me, in tones so accusatory I wondered if I should exercise my right to an attorney.  And what was she accusing me of?  Possessing a functioning uterus?

It turns out this question was part of an elaborate lead-up, a little like a policeman's "And where were you on Friday night?"  (And when the suspect says, "Home alone," the policeman pounces.)

Only it didn't turn out that way.

"No," I said, uncertain but opting for the truth.

"Oh," she said, looking disappointed and even mildly sheepish.  Keep in mind: I don't know her, we've spoken maybe once in passing, and now she was acquainting the entire office and its whispering inhabitants with my private business, as if we were all jointly a newlywed Catholic couple trying to figure out the Rhythm Method.

It turns out, however, that an unnamed and mysterious woman in our office behaved in a way that was loo-inappropriate.  The Loo-Body, a vigilante to the core, had decided to go around questioning all the possible suspects in as roundabout a way as possible.  In the end, her search yielded a pool of about twenty suspects.  Further testing, thank God, would have required the aid of a forensics lab, and so she dropped her quest.