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Today at work as yet another sighting of the not-so-elusive old lady in the bathroom.

A little about said old lady: I shall call her Paula Dean, though I have my doubts she could cook me up anything half as delicious as the real Paula. This little old lady works on my floor at a huge financial company here in Boston with me. I don’t know her personally nor have I ever been introduced, and I have no idea what she actually does for the company. She’s probably in her late 50s or early 60s, short, has a solid head of white hair cut into a bob, and doesn’t ever really talk to me (probably cause bathroom time is Kim time and I don’t really want to chat while I’m trying to do my business).

I take a few bathroom breaks staggered throughout the day more or less thanks to my constant intake of coffee and tea to keep me awake on the long, boring days and, I swear, there is a 95.333% probability that on my bathroom excursion I will encounter Paula Dean in the bathroom near the sinks doing one of the following:

1. Staring blankly into the mirror
2. Washing her hands
3. Applying various types of makeup
4. Combing her hair
5. Blow drying her hair (not kidding, she brings in her own blow dryer)
6. Chatting with other middle-aged women in the bathroom

The first few weeks I thought it was coincidental that I’d run into Paula so frequently. Maybe we both had synchronized bladders and decided to take our breaks at similar times. As the second month rolled around it started to get kind of ridiculous. I would encounter Paula so often that it became kind of a Russian roulette with myself as I walked the 1 minute walk to the bathroom: “What will the little old lady be doing in the bathroom today?” and I’d try to guess which of the aforementioned she’d be doing this bathroom break. The funniest part is that if she was in a stall the whole time I’d think she just was old and had bladder issues. Makes sense. Old people have health problems. But no! Little old Paula is never actually doing business in a stall, she just hangs around the sinks doing her hair, makeup, or socializing it up.

I’ve come to the conclusion that little Paula doesn’t do much of anything here. I think she works on the business side of our floor, so she does have a real job/responsibilities. But herein lies the hilarious part about working at a corporate giant like I do – no one pays attention to you. I could leave work right now at 10:30am and not come back for the entirety of the day and no one would notice I’m gone. I think Paula has realized the same thing and has decided to spend half of her 8 hour workday in the bathroom doing her hair and makeup (cause you know you need to look sexy in your 60s). No one says anything because everyone takes liberties with the lax system around here and as long as that’s the case, the lovely bureaucracy of my company shall continue and Paula Dean will continue to stalk me in the bathrooms and make me uncomfortable fidgeting behind my stall as she sits there touching up her mascara.