Sometimes when I’m in public bathrooms, I worry about the sounds I make.

And I’m not talking about those sounds; although that is a concern of mine, it is entirely another issue altogether.

I’m talking about the sounds I make when I think I’m alone.

Because when you go from the public realm to a more private space, your thought process changes. Once you step into the toilets, something happens. Suddenly you’re not thinking about spreadsheets, coffee filters or manila folders (this is what I imagine working adults think about. Considering I write about viral cat videos for a living, I have no idea what a normal working adult does or thinks about). Instead, your mind interprets the privacy allowed by cubical walls as a cue to go deep down into your subconscious.

Standing up from your desk or stepping away from an overcrowded bar can prompt your brain to think it’s break time and therefore it’s ok to bring up some of its favourite memories. And its favourite memories, it would seem, aren’t the ones about your friends or family or that time you drew a really satisfying G.

No, the memories your brain seems to enjoy putting on repeat again and again like a videotape with a recording of an Olsen twins movie on it at a house of four girls are the cringe-worthy, painful, confronting ones.

You know the memories I’m talking about. They’re the ones that make you really uncomfortable that you are successfully able to repress most of the time by distracting yourself with work or friends or the Instagram feeds of Texan couples who flip houses for a living.

But when you’re in the toilet without your phone, you’re stripped of all those handy diversions. All you have are those blank cubical walls and your infernal memories.

And most of the time I’m off to the water closet (fancy term I know, but I can only use the word “toilet” so many times and even I’m not bogan enough to call it a “bog trough”) my brain decides there’s no need to put a time delay on my thoughts going to air. When I’m in a public situation, my brain is often forward thinking enough to review my reactionary thoughts, decide whether they are appropriate to voice and either allow said thoughts to be verbalised or swallowed down to join the fiery ball of the others burning an ulcer of repressed emotions into my stomach lining. This also applies to sound effects. But when I’m by myself, the crew that handles this job must go out for smoko because unfiltered reactions to the thoughts being projected on the imaginary white sheet in my mind come pouring out.

So with the combined conditions of the recalled cringe material and the shutting down of the sound filter, I find myself audibly gasping, groaning and sassily exhaling. I also have been known to verbalise the comeback I wish I had have said at the time or voice commentary on the past scenario, depending on what past indiscretion is being broadcast in that particular moment.

This is generally fine when I’m at home, because the only person who is around to hear it is usually me and I’ve already won myself over, so hearing that kind of crap doesn’t faze me.

But I when I’m in a place where others might hear me, I worry. Because chances are when I say something weird, someone is going to be taking a dump next to me.

And the trouble is that sometimes I’m so absent minded that I forget to keep track of whether I’ve said anything aloud in the first place.

So maybe I’m thinking about that time I was chatting to a fellow at a bowls day, a couple of schooners in, and was surprised by how young he was. In my mind, he looked to be in his 30s but he was actually younger than me. Instead of swallowing my initial shock and saying something like, “you have a more mature look about you,” I blurted out a horrendous, “geeez you’ve had a rough couple of years”.

That graceful social interaction was almost two years ago, and yet it still prompts a verbal reaction from me when I think about it. Sometimes the noise is akin to the sound you would make when you’ve paid $14.70 for a piece of pie and the waiter places a tiny sliver of a Sara Lee classic apple in front of you; sometimes it sounds like I am gargling my own shame in the back of my throat; and sometimes I let out an involuntary “who says that?!”.

But when I find myself in the cubicle, I worry if I have just thought those sounds/reactions or if I’ve actually whispered them to myself.

And whispering to yourself in the toilet isn’t normal. At best it’s neurotic, and at worse it sounds like you’re muttering incantations in your cubicle during a Moan Myrtle style breakdown.

So to cover up the potential dunny don’t, I employ the same technique for the accidental fart noise. I try to make the same noise again in a bid to make it clear to whoever may or may not be listening that the first noise came from the same source as the second noise and was not a faux pas.

This of course means that I spend most of my time in the ladies’ room breathily humming to myself.

And it’s dawning on me that perhaps this isn’t that great either.

I think I need to invest in some adult-sized nappies or avoid consuming anything within two hours of leaving the house.

Or maybe I should just never leave the house?